


The Girl Who Couldn’t Choose (in progress)

by KagsChann (KagameDM)



Category: Draco Malfoy - Fandom, Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Conflict, F/M, Family Drama, Internal Conflict, Manipulation, Multi, no magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 37,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26801884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KagameDM/pseuds/KagsChann
Summary: She was not supposed to be friends with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Growing up, she was brought around rich families, like the Malfoys... her father's closest colleagues. She didn't much like them, though.Her mother died when she was very young, and Severus was extremely secretive... not giving her an inch, a single shred of information. At the age of 13, she began to attend the boarding school that her father resided in most of the time. She denied friendship with Draco Malfoy twice - once at a Christmas party, and then the second time when she met up with him at school. However, was forced to make nice with the people who teased her for trivial issues. That didn't stop her from sneaking away to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione. However...She didn't realize then, that her life would eventually take a more complicated path than it was already on. She didn't realize that she would eventually develop these bizarre feelings for Draco Malfoy... whom she was convinced she would loathe forever.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Original Female Character(s), Harry Potter/Original Female Character(s), Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Lavender Brown/Ron Weasley, Pansy Parkinson/Blaise Zabini
Kudos: 3





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> (Quick note: as of 10/14/20, the title has been changed from “The Slytherin Princess” to its current title. This story is a rewrite of the OG written on FanFiction.Net back in 2011.)
> 
> This is a work of fiction, obviously. This is an alternate universe where there is no magic, no Hogwarts: just some students going to a private boarding school, with characters from a book by an author that does not share the same views as I do. While I do not support JKR in her recent endeavors and decisions, I can find happiness in characters I’ve loved since I was a teenager. We can all agree to that. Please be aware this is a Draco x Original Character story. This is not a “self insert”. I would love comments and criticism, but don’t be rude. Thank you, and let me know what you think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically the prologue. I posted this on Wattpad where the chapters are numbered, but it looks weird to put the actual chapter number next to “chapter 1,2, etc” ....

"Gathering here today, we honor the life and light of Vivienne Adorna. She leaves behind a widower husband, and only daughter, Cilwenu Eileen. It's a tragedy she left this world so early in her life. In her prime, perhaps."

They were wrong about one thing, and that was Vivienne being married to Severus. They were never married, and having Cilwenu was an accident. Severus hardly ever touched fire whiskey afterwards, but there he was - a child to take care of, or... perhaps, send off to an orphanage and never speak of again. However, all his colleagues knew about her. It was easier to say that Severus and Vivienne were married, to save face. If they knew that Cilwenu was conceived and born out of wedlock, it would probably wreck the man's reputation. He was one of the most respected Professors in London.

Having almost left her on the orphanage doorstep, Severus turned away from his tiny daughter, and something stopped him. Like a whisper in his ear, the cold winter breeze struck him to his very core, and Cilwenu began to stir and cry at his feet. She opened her piercing green eyes, welling over, and Severus let out a ragged breath.

He took the girl home.

- _some years later_ -

Cilwenu met the Malfoy family at some sort of extravagant get together which required most of the well knowns of London to attend. She remembered that she didn't really like the way the Malfoy Manor was built. It was ominous, and large, and incredibly dark looking. The gates themselves were overwhelming when they opened and allowed people in. She would much rather be home, doing anything else but this.

The inside was ornately decorated like some page right out of a Gothic magazine fantasy. Apparently, this was the decision of the head of the house... what a rather odd taste... although not much far off from the way her father decorated. Well... the aesthetic was unsettling, to sum it all up. They had two dogs, older, and they sat near the grand fireplace as if they were meant to guard it. Cilwenu was instructed to neither touch them, or anything else.

Not that she was going to, anyways..

It was her earliest memory of meeting Draco Malfoy, but they had never been formally introduced. He did, however, eye her sort of incredulously across from the table. She had no idea what he was like, not yet anyways.

- _age ten_ -

Severus was terribly secretive. He kept his study locked, and his bedroom was off limits as well. Cilwenu developed an insatiable curiosity about all the things he seemed to never want to talk about. This included her mother. Severus knew that she would eventually start to ask questions, but he never properly prepared himself for when they'd come. He didn't have a single photo of her around. Not in a frame, not wedged inside some dictionary... nowhere.

Cilwenu wanted to know why, and their maids never talked about it either. They were more of a mother to her than anything else. They fed her, they instructed her through most of primary school, and told her when it was time for bed. Her father was a Professor at some private school that she would attend once she reached the age of thirteen. She, for the time being, attended an all girls school deep within London, and under the care of very strict rules. She had a curfew, and she was always escorted home by somebody that only kept it cordial with her because that is what they were paid to do.

When she came home, because the maids did everything, she never got a second alone with her father that wasn't also in somebody else's company. It was a lonely life being an only child with a father who seemed very detached from parental affection.

By chance, somehow, there was an opportunity that presented itself to Cilwenu. The maids had been cleaning and accidentally left Severus' study door unlocked. Severus was out for the day, doing who knows what... and she grabbed that opportunity without hesitation, or mindfulness that she might get caught.

His study was like a miniature library. It was also quite dusty and smelled of old books. She had to lean back quite a bit to get a good idea of how many there might be. She supposed well over a hundred or so... but perception was to anybody, different. She felt the supple leather of some of those books when she glided her fingertips over their spines. They didn't make her feel anything, and she would never get to read them... but she was still curious.

Why was he so secretive?

She dared to search further, and then made her way towards his mahogany colored desk, neatly organized and nothing out of place. She felt like she might have needed to grab a pair of gloves, as to not leave a single fingerprint behind. Cilwenu thought, surely, if something was hiding... it would be inside that one sliver of a drawer underneath the main part of the desk.

Of course, it was locked.

Cilwenu had never picked a lock before, and that might leave a trace if she did her first attempt on a desk much older than she was. She did circles looking around the study for any sign of where he might hide something like a key. He probably wouldn't hide it on the desk... there would be no point. Perhaps he might take it with him, but Cilwenu thought that would look rather silly.

She almost gave up the search until she saw one of those dusty books looking much cleaner than it's shelf-mates. That's where she found the key, in a hollowed out book, all by itself.

Inside the drawer was a photo of somebody she had never seen before, and she thought it might be her mother. Cilwenu felt her heart beating so fast, but it quickly sank when she turned it over and saw the name. Her mother's name was not Lily... She didn't get anywhere, and she wanted to ask her father who Lily was.. why she was so much more important than the woman he made a child with. Her anger bubbled up and spilled over into complete heartache. She was caught by a maid, crying in Severus' chair, and quickly whisked out.

However, as the maid was locking the study door back, they were both greeted by Severus, who ended up firing the maid, and leaving Cilwenu with nothing, yet again.

- _age eleven-_

Christmas morning wasn't the same for her as it was for the girls at her school. They would always brag about sweets and presents. Cilwenu got sweets, but she never got presents. She would have to attend more of those extravagant parties with Severus and his colleagues. She would stand in the corner and observe, but never talk to anybody - not even Draco, who did try and attempt to make friends with her. She just stared, which made Draco feel insecure enough to decide on picking on her instead. It was then that the official bullying started... she was apparently daft for not accepting his friendship. She didn't care though. These people didn't care about her...

The night they got home that Christmas, Cilwenu was riled up with anxiety, being shooed off to bed. She refused, and even smacked one of the maids that tried to grab her and drag her to bed.

Severus confronted her for the behavior, wanting to know why.

"I want to know why you won't talk to me about my mother." She told him, eyes red with tears, and her stomach doing cartwheels. Even though she was trembling, she was determined to get the information out of him.

"I want to know why there's a photograph of another woman in your study that isn't my mother-"

"How did you get into my desk?" Severus had never been that close to Cilwenu in her entire life... not that she recalled. He towered over her, which frightened Cilwenu. She scrunched up, stumbling backwards as a response. Apparently the woman in the photo meant something to Severus that Cilwenu might not ever understand.

"I... I fo-found the k-"

"You are clever, and I know that your curiosity would lead you to go back there again, but you do not want to step on toes of your authority, child, believe me..." Even if she wanted to, there was no way to get into the study without another foolish mistake by one of the maids.Considering the reconditioning the remaining lot had gotten after the first incident, it was unlikely that it would ever happen again.

All Cilwenu could do was nod, dismissing the intentions she carried initially. She remembered crying herself to sleep that night, and a few nights after that, for a few months straight.

- _age thirteen_ -

The school was big, and ancient. Many new students stood in a cluster amongst one another. It was loud, and optimistic, but Cilwenu felt like she was lost. She was one of the first students to arrive, because that's where her father resided, after all. She had her bags at her sides, and wondered if Severus would even get lonely without her there until the holidays. She was out of place in a strange land, it seemed.

All around her, once she got to a particular lot of students, there was whispering and giggling. She furrowed her brow and couldn't figure out why they were all looking at her. Was there something wrong with here robes? She frantically checked herself to see if maybe she stepped in gum, or maybe had toilet paper stuck to her heel or something. She found nothing... she didn't understand until...

Draco Malfoy stood before her, arms crossed over his puffed up chest proudly. He looked so smug, but she knew who he was the moment she laid her eyes upon his platinum blonde hair. One last time he offered his companionship to her, saying that it would be wise of her to choose the right type of company to hang around with while she was there. The way he held his hand out, as if she might actually shake it, made him look so pompous... Cilwenu declined. She told him that she could never associate with somebody so entitled.

Draco didn't like that one bit, especially since their families were in such close allegiance... in terms of their parents. He shouted about his father, but Cilwenu had retreated back into the crowd at that point. If she was alone at home, then she would also be alone at school.

What she didn't take into account was that her demeanor would cause her to really be alone, and miserable. She didn't like the way some of the students laughed at her, and all because she declined Draco's stupid offer... as if it would place her on top of some sort of pedestal had she accepted. One girl in particular, by the name of Pansy Parkinson, was the head honcho of all the teasing. She was something of Draco's girlfriend, unless Cilwenu mistakenly assumed. She would later find out that Pansy was nothing but a little fan girl who only hoped that one day Draco would fall madly in love with her.

"Suppose you might not look so pathetic chasing after a fever dream, Parkinson." Cilwenu stood up for herself after realizing it, which got her into a bit of an altercation with Pansy. Pansy was not a very good fighter - because her only move was to pull Cilwenu's hair and squeal incessantly... Cilwenu remembered kicking the girl in the shin, making her cry, before she scurried off and intended on going back to her room to lock the door and hide.

Not before she bumped into a trio of other students, landing on her bottom with her skirt flipping upwards with the wind. She was humiliated, but the girl who stood there with two boys helped her back up. Cilwenu wanted to burst into tears then and there, but she was dumbstruck that these three actually asked her if she was okay. Apparently, they had seen the altercation from where they stood, but didn't want to get involved in case they all got slapped with a detention.

She learned that their names were: Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Ronald Weasley. They knew how awful Draco was, and how Pansy was his annoying little shadow who usually stood at the forefront with a couple other students Draco deemed his friends. Cilwenu would later learn that Crabbe and Goyle were those other two friends' names.

That was the day Cilwenu made friends for the very first time in her life.

- _more time passes_ -

Severus didn't like Cilwenu's friends, but that didn't really surprise her. He didn't even seem to like her most of the time, so why would he like that she was developing a better personality because of them? Apparently Harry was the least favorite, and Cilwenu didn't know why - he gave no coherent reason for it. He wanted Cilwenu to stop associating with them, because their influence would shed a negative light on her reputation. She didn't know what that meant, considering it seemed like he didn't pay attention to the way that the other students treated her.

Whatever the reason, Severus would try to shove the Malfoy boy down her throat instead... she had to start hanging out with him and his friends. Her three didn't understand, but why would they? They didn't know Severus as anything but their Professor... a silent man who was Cilwenu's father.

The fact that Cilwenu was forced to spend time with them made their teasing far more persistent. It was comical to them that she couldn't choose her own friends, and how "daddy's little girl" had to hold her tongue and keep from standing her own ground. It was a losing battle with the lot... Pansy especially. She didn't like the threat of another girl catching Draco's eyes, but Pansy erred to understand that Cilwenu would never want to be on a first name basis with Draco.

Her best friend, Millicent Bulstrode filled Pansy's head with lies that Cilwenu was even watching Draco's every single move. Said that she was going to edge Pansy right out of the picture. Cilwenu thought about how awful of a friend Millicent was for doing that. Of course, they were awful people... manipulative and narcissistic.

Eventually, Cilwenu began to sneak around and meet up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. She didn't care what Severus had to say, and she wasn't going to continue to spend all of her free time with his preferred company for her. She didn't want to be the girl who couldn't speak her mind and make her own choices... 

She didn't realize then, that her life would eventually take a more complicated path than it was already on. She didn't realize that she would eventually develop these bizarre feelings for Draco Malfoy... whom she was convinced she would loathe forever.


	2. Changes

- _age sixteen_ -

Cilwenu spent loads of time with her friends throughout the following three years. She was hardly ever alone on her free periods, and it earned a lot of disapproval from the group of students that her father preferred her to hang out with. She told him many times that she refused to be told who she could and could not make friends with. Harry, Ron, and Hermione weren't stuck up like the others. They genuinely wanted Cilwenu to feel welcome.

Without those three, Cilwenu knew that she would be lost. Hermione was able to tell her all of those things that Cilwenu failed to learn about without having a mother. She was the first girl she made actual friends with that wasn't a maid hired to watch over her. When they had a class about female anatomy... Hermione told Cilwenu not to be embarrassed about the lack of knowing everything she needed to know. It comforted her.

Ron had a rather big family, who often sent him care packages that he shared with the three of them. Cilwenu had never known so much generosity until Ron, which was embraced warmly and greatly appreciated. She was so elated that they didn't treat her like she felt... a fish out of water. It was alarming all the things she hadn't felt until she met them. She might have developed a cold, hardened personality like her father if she stuck around the people he told her to. Cilwenu didn't want to be cold, or hardened.

With the others, they acted like they were better than anybody else. Pansy and Millicent followed their chosen boy toys around every other week, but it was mostly Draco for Pansy, at the end of the day. He loved to speak his mind about what he thought about people who didn't want to take allegiance with him. Not only spoke, but he and Harry seemed to come close to altercations of their own as time passed.

Cilwenu and Harry grew a lot closer to one another than she did with the other two. She really didn't know why, nor did she (really) intend it, but Harry was her best friend. Even though he did have a lot more in common with Ron than he did with her, both being boys and all. They empathized with one another on the loss of a parent, because Harry had lost both of his parents to some sort of awful accident. Cilwenu could detect the pain in his eyes whenever he spoke of them, it was disheartening. She at least had one of her parents... even if he didn't seem to act like one towards her.

It became a new target for Draco, seeing the both of them together a lot more frequently than with Hermione and Ron. Harry and Cilwenu had most of the same classes together, and it just happened that so did Draco and a few of his followers... Crabbe and Goyle.

Rumors of "Snape and Potter" blossomed in the halls, and Draco had even made a song about it... which a lot of them chanted to them throughout the days. Harry didn't deny it, but he also said that he didn't want to feed into their drama like they wanted.

"Would you date Harry, though?" Hermione had asked Cilwenu, having pulled her aside so that they wouldn't hear.

Cilwenu didn't think about Harry that way, and she wondered if he thought about her like that... It made her nervous, because she knew that it could potentially ruin their friendship if something happened, if something went wrong. Cilwenu would push this thought in the back of her head... and it would completely go onto the back burner when Cilwenu was unexpectedly paired with Draco Malfoy on a research project.

The dread she felt knowing that she had to spend a lot of one-on-one time with him was an understatement. He didn't seem too happy about it either, but there was nothing they could do - unless they wanted to fail. If Cilwenu failed. a class because of Draco... her father would find a way to turn it back around on her, because she made a point to avoid him whenever she could. He was their classroom bully, after all.

She fully expected him to be extremely inconsiderate and not willing to co-operate at all. For the first couple of times, he was... but eventually, something took a drastic change. Cilwenu found herself preoccupied with thoughts of Draco... She was frustrated at the fact that she was allowing herself to think about him all the time... Not frustrated at the way he could crawl underneath her skin, like she usually would be... like she should have been.

She told herself that she wouldn't continue to think about him as anything other than the annoying boy she met when she was five years old. The little boy with the stupid blonde-white hair, and that stupid smug little smirk, who thought that everything and everyone could be his. His right foul, snotty, sarcastic personality would be a reminder that she could never change her original opinion of him...

Then he opened up to her, and she caught glimpses of a rare version of himself. He talked about his family, and looked completely vulnerable. It was strange, because who knew that he could be capable of feeling anything aside from spite? She disregarded all the battles within herself and felt empathy. It seemed impossible, but there had already been those thoughts in the very back of her mind... so maybe it was inevitable. Cilwenu wanted to hear more from him... and pretty soon, she became so enveloped in these bizarre feelings, that she didn't even push Draco away when he leaned in to kiss her.

She practically tossed everything right into the bin, just like that. Night and day, she couldn't deny it, and she stopped fighting it. There was no way that she could tell her friends about it. It would shock them too much, and they would question her sanity. She didn't need that when she was already questioning it herself - but she began to look forward to seeing Draco after.

All her friends knew - was that she still had to sit through a few more research sessions with Draco, and then the project would be over... and she could stop spending so much time with him. She had to pretend like she still dreaded it. They didn't see how different Draco was when on his good side, and Pansy would probably lose her mind if she knew that they spent time snogging - getting their project done a little earlier.

However, people still lurked in libraries, and Crabbe and Goyle never really kept things quiet. Speaking of Pansy, she had apparently sent the two boys to see what exactly went on during Cilwenu and Draco's research sessions. That was when it all started, and Pansy spread the news like wildfire.

Cilwenu had no idea how she was going to tell her friends... in a frantic panic because there was no way that they were going to accept that information easily.

Once Hermione overheard it amongst a group of obnoxious younger girls, she tracked Cilwenu down and cornered her in between classes.

"Have you gone completely mad?" It was the angriest Cilwenu had seen Hermione. "It's Draco... you know... the boy who does nothing but wreak havoc on us all the time?"

"Hermione-"

"How are you going to explain yourself? What could you possibly see in somebody like him?"

She really had no explanation. She was trying to figure it all out herself, after all. Hermione told her that it would probably be wise to tell Harry and Ron about it before they found out through the grapevines like she did. She seemed pretty apprehensive, though, especially when it came to telling Harry, and Cilwenu didn't know why. However, by the time Cilwenu had mustered up the courage to actually tell them... it had been too late.

Ron's opinions of Cilwenu changed that day as well... How was Cilwenu supposed to know that her best friend, Harry, had a crush on her all along? It seemed so out of left field, but Ron knew about it, as did Hermione. They never really knew how to tell Cilwenu, because of how she had responded to Hermione asking her if she would ever date Harry. Was that a sign, and Cilwenu had been too empty-headed to realize? Why couldn't Harry have just told her before? She wasn't sure if that would have made much of a difference, though. She remembered feeling incredibly guilty, because while she wanted to protect their friendship from spoiling over getting into a relationship... perhaps it seemed that she spoiled it worse with the alternative.

She was fraternizing with the enemy.

"I suppose you aren't going to talk to me anymore, are you?" Cilwenu remembered asking, searching her friends with scared eyes, hoping they would give her an immediate response. Immediate reassurance.

"How can we be friends with you now? Malfoy isn't going to let you be seen with us. He's going to change you-"

"Dra-..." Cilwenu stopped herself, "No, he can't change me. He won't, I promise." She was desperate, because they were her only friends, and she had a thought that she should just push Draco away if it meant that it was going to ruin everything. Selfishly, having been the first boy she had ever kissed, and who had ever sparked something inside of her that she wanted to continue, Cilwenu didn't know if she should do that either.

If she could get Draco to open up to her the way that he did, maybe she could get her friends to understand and be on her level.

It wouldn't be that simple, but she wanted to believe that the complications that could arise would not be as difficult as she might suspect. She wanted to believe that she could have both her friends and her... new beau, and just be happy in the middle.


	3. Rekindling

Pansy declared an undying rivalry against Cilwenu right after it was official she had taken Draco as her boyfriend. However, it was already pretty much declared from the moment she met Pansy. Cilwenu didn't care what she thought... She would take Pansy on any time, any day.

She walked through the halls with Draco in between classes more frequently as the days flew by. They brushed knuckles and interlocked fingers from time to time, but Draco liked to keep the public displays of affection at a minimum. He was a private man, for the most part, when it came to his relationship.

He became more protective of Cilwenu as well, making sure that there were no whispers about her in the halls anymore. Not so long as she was his girlfriend. Crabbe and Goyle stood in the background now, but Draco had them keeping an eye on Cilwenu when he wasn't around. He truly didn't like that she maintained her friendships, but she still went and saw them anyways. It made Draco ridiculously frustrated at her, obviously.

"You don't need them, now that you have me-"

"Don't be bloody stupid, _Malfoy_ -"

"What did you just call me?"

Then, after they would argue, Cilwenu would find herself against the wall, with Draco's hand on her cheek, coercing her to forgive him, because he promised that he wouldn't yell at her like that anymore. He never meant it, but when he kissed her in private, it all went away. He tasted like apples, and was smooth like her father's fire whiskey, but sweeter. Cilwenu was always wanting more from Draco. Yet, Draco was a little more traditional when it came to the intimate bits. He wasn't ready to go that far. Not yet.

-

It took Harry a little while to get over the initial shock of Cilwenu dating Draco. They didn't speak for at least a month, which gutted Cilwenu. Her heart felt heavy seeing Harry in the halls, because he wouldn't even look at her. The only line of communication to her friends during that time was via Hermione, who struggled to bite her tongue from all the sarcastic comments she wanted to spit at Draco's expense. She told Cilwenu she wouldn't be able to understand her relationship... but then again, she couldn't understand love quite well either, Hermione would say.

Cilwenu wanted to pull Harry aside and talk to him, but the task was not going to be an easy one given the circumstances. She would have to wait until she was alone... and wait until Harry was alone, not being shadowed by Ron. At the end of that month, she managed. She had pulled Harry into an empty classroom, closed the door behind them, and told Harry she wasn't going to move until he spoke to her.

"You have to talk to me sooner or later, Harry."

She remembered the hesitance in his eyes, but also the guilt he held in them for even feeling the way that he did. Harry was a genuine guy, and while he didn't like her choices, he couldn't hate her. He didn't have to hate her just because she was dating his enemy.

"You're my best friend... and I know I can't ask you to support me being with Malfoy... but I am only asking you to just talk to me. Don't hate me, Harry."

"I do-..." Harry sighed heavily, then grabbed Cilwenu's arm, giving it a gentle squeeze, "I don't hate you."

"I miss you, Harry. I miss your voice, your laugh..." She felt her eyes well up with tears, and knowing that she probably shouldn't cry, or show this type of weakness... she couldn't help it. It all went back to her having developed a softer, more empathetic and emotional side versus the cold, hard, selfish one that she would have without her friends. Without Harry, she wouldn't know how to care about other people the way she did.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, honestly. I had no ide-"

Harry covered her mouth with his hand, warm and so big that his thumb brushed one ear lobe while his middle finger brushed the other. He shook his head dismissively, not wanting to discuss his feelings for Cilwenu _with_ Cilwenu.

"I can't say much about Ron. He doesn't hate you, but he is stubborn... like a bull."

She grabbed Harry's wrist, and pulled his hand away from her face. Her cheeks were pink with blush, she wiped away the little drips of tears that managed to fall "You're the one that I cared the most about not talking to me. I couldn't go another day with you pretending like I didn't exist."

Harry wouldn't divulge to her that every single time he walked past her in the hall, he could figure out where she was just by the scent of her perfume, her hair. Soft, pillowy vanilla... laced with warm notes of honey and brown sugar, and a hint of amber - whatever that meant. He wouldn't tell her that it was incredibly hard not to look at her face, and wonder how she was so pretty, when her father looked not... so... pretty. It was only ever going to be a silly crush, but he feared that it wouldn't completely go away so long as she was in his life.

Seeing her there, telling him that she missed his laugh, his voice... Harry pushed those words to the back of his head, and took her still being with Draco Malfoy like swallowing a pill without water. She definitely deserved so much better than that.

She just was so enamored by Draco, though, and that was the problem.

"Let's get out of here, yeah?" Harry suggested, in reference to the classroom they were still very much in. It wouldn't be long before a teacher had to come in and do some actual teaching inside of it. It would look rather odd turning on the light to a couple of students, one of them borderline about to cry.

At least that part of the conversation was over, and Cilwenu felt like she could finally move forward in peace again, at least in terms of her friends. Maybe not Ron, like Harry said, but with time, she hoped.

Harry opened the door for Cilwenu, leaning over her to twist the knob and allow the outside light of the corridor pour in. He smiled down at her, but quickly backed away and cleared his throat. Personal boundaries didn't really phase Cilwenu like they would normally with another person. She just kept smiling at him, nodding her head and agreeing that it was time to move on with the day.

-

"Oh, hello, Snape."

Cilwenu rolled her eyes, only to turn around and face Pansy, who was leaning against a nearby shelf. She always looked rather annoying, but Cilwenu figured that would never change.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

"I saw you go into an empty classroom with Harry." She had a smug smile on her lips, while she drummed her fingers along the crook of her elbow.

Cilwenu knit her brows together, knowing exactly where Pansy was headed with this. She had never really taken into account who had been around when she finally convinced Harry to talk to her again, and off course it would be Pansy... It just had to be, didn't it?

"Don't be stupid, you didn't see anything..."

Pansy chuckled, approaching Cilwenu slowly, "I saw what I saw, Snape... I bet it would be a shame if I told Draco that you're sneaking around the school, pulling random boys into empty classrooms when he isn't around. I knew you were a no good, pathetic whore-"

Cilwenu couldn't say that Harry wasn't some random boy, and make her case worse.

"Stand down, Parkinson... before I make you-"

"If you touch me, I will tell your boyfriend, and he will leave you faster than you can blink. Then, he will be with me, and you'll have to watch the two of us snogging in the common rooms when we think nobody can see or hear us... just like you and Draco do every single day."

It was comical to Cilwenu all the little details that Pansy brought up in her defending arguement, or whatever it was she thought she was doing, "A little obsessed, are we?"

"With _you_? Dream on."

"Sure, tell Draco what you saw.. but there is no way I am explaining anything to you."

"If you _lied_ to _me_ , then what will stop you from lying to _Draco_?"

Cilwenu was over the conversation, and wanted to retreat to her bedroom without giving Pansy any more incentive. Perhaps, though, doing so would be giving her incentive as well. She just wished that complications weren't a thing, even though they always would be in life... wouldn't they?

"Why are you chasing after somebody who will never see you as more than one of the guys?" Cilwenu taunted. Pansy was there in Draco's life for much longer than Cilwenu, though. There had always been rumor that the two of them dated for a brief amount of time, but not significant enough to make that much of a difference, and perhaps in secret as per Draco's preference.

Cilwenu knew the way that Draco felt about Pansy, though. He wouldn't end up with a girl like that, because of how territorial and obnoxious she was about it already. Draco liked girls who knew what they wanted, but didn't go and act like a complete idiot about it.

Suddenly, though, she felt herself getting anxiety about Draco's type... and how she fit that category herself. If she truly did at all, given all the stereotypes. Cilwenu didn't know if she was her boyfriends type at all, but if she wasn't, then would he be with her at all? This was one of the things she hated about Pansy, and these random thoughts of being "good enough" for Draco. She second guessed herself a lot, and while that wasn't anything new, it was new in ways that pertained to the situation. It would all link back to thinking she was good enough in general. For herself, for her friends, for her father-

She wouldn't let Pansy continue to make her feel like this for long, if that was her plan.

"You better hold your tongue." Pansy said through her teeth. Luckily, Cilwenu knew how to inch under her skin, too.

Pansy came in that much closer, dragging her finger along Cilwenu's necklace chain. Cilwenu jerked herself backwards as a response, ready to throw a punch if she absolutely had to. She wasn't so sure that Pansy would be brave enough to hit her... considering Draco would get involved. Seeing as how she was going to hold Harry and the empty classroom over her head... she also thought there would be a bigger chance for it, though.

"Sleep well, Snape."


	4. Thoughts

Hermione and Ron sat in front of Cilwenu, while all three of them waited for Harry to come back through with their beverages. It was his choice to leave the three of them alone when he brought Cilwenu into the cafeteria - probably hoping that they would chatter about this and that. However, they sat there awkwardly, uncomfortably.

"How are things...?" Hermione did ask, fidgeting with her hair band that was wrapped around her wrist. A nervous tendency most people had, fidgeting. Hermione had, after all, been here and there before Harry and Cilwenu "made up".

Cilwenu glanced between she and Ron - they would make such a cute couple if Hermione gave him a chance... and if Ron wasn't supposedly dating a girl named Lavender. Apparently, Lavender was not a huge fan of Hermione, for many reasons that didn't particularly make sense, but were notable.

Hermione did tend to make more friends with males than she did her own sex. Whether or not that actually meant anything didn't really make much difference to Cilwenu. She loved Hermione's personality and her blunt form of communication - speaking her mind in a firm, but meaningful way to those who deserved it. Otherwise, they would be sliced apart by her comments, and Cilwenu was concerned that she would be on the brutal side.

Ron probably liked the attention he got from his new girlfriend, but Cilwenu wouldn't be able to hold a decent conversation with him if she tried. He was, like Harry said, stubborn. She wanted to make amends, but Cilwenu wouldn't actively seek it out as much as she had with Harry. She thought letting him come to her at the right time would be best.

"Things are well. I think I am passing all my classes."

"I'm sure all the rest of your time is spent with _Malfoy_ -"

Hermione smacked Ron's upper arm for his comment, and he protested at her in response. He shook his head, not willing to comment any further in anticipation that he would get smacked again. He muttered something beneath his breath that neither of them quite caught, and Hermione looked a little apprehensive.

"Don't listen to Ron, Wen. We don't like Malfoy, but we _do_ care about _your_ well being. Harry didn't force us-"

Ron scoffed. He got smacked again.

"-to talk to you again. We didn't know how to talk to you when Harry wasn't also talking to you. He went through a little bit of self-doubt once he learned about you and Malfoy."

"I understand why you would be reluctant to stay in contact with me." She wasn't lying, but it didn't mean that her feelings were less hurt by the fact. All three were her closest friends, regardless of the way Ron was acting. He wouldn't act that way if, on some level, he didn't care at all. "I never meant to hurt Harry, but he didn't seem to want my explanation when i went to address it."

"Oh, he won't to us either. We just dropped it and went along with what he wanted." Hermione sighed, "He's moving on slowly."

Cilwenu nodded, and that was when Harry returned, grinning pleasantly at all three of them. He asked what they were talking about, and Hermione shrugged. Ron's expression led Harry to believe that wasn't true. Cilwenu brushed her hand along Harry's back to thank him for being so kind. He noticeably flinched, and she stopped. The more awkward, the better, she sighed...

-

"Is it correct that you are still being courted by the Malfoy boy?" Severus asked his daughter in a low tone as if anybody could hear them talking once class had let out. It was extremely rare they communicated at all throughout the school years, worse than when they were home for the holidays. As if Cilwenu would have had the chance to speak to him at all given how much he still managed to be gone.

She had been gathering her assignments and books, ready to just leave the classroom without a word, until he approached her. He knew the answer to that question, so why was he asking it in the first place? She knew that this was probably something he had envisioned when taking her along with him to all those extravagant get-togethers. Seeing his daughter with somebody who had a big social status in the community like the Malfoys. Who could he have hand picked better than that? Those thoughts left an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach. She didn't want to think of it.

"Is this really what you want to talk to me about?"

He gave her a blank stare, then turned around to face his chalkboard and erase the lesson of the day, to start fresh. Perhaps he changed his mind with how she retorted. Cilwenu wanted to be dismissive, but it just filled her with aggravation.

"You wanted to talk about nothing else?"

He continued to erase, picking up a used piece of chalk to rewrite "Professor Snape" at the top of the board, as if anybody could forget.

"Why bother talking to me at all, if you're going to close off the moment I don't give you what you want? It's pointless." She yanked her shoulder bag strap onto her shoulder, just staring at the back of his head in hopes that he would just say something else instead of giving her exactly what he had only ever given her for her whole life. The desperation she felt welling up was sudden and agonizing. It would drive her to resent him if he continued.

"You should excuse yourself to your quarters for the evening, and we can discuss this another time." He marked up the date, and what page number he wanted his next class to turn to, as per usual.

"I want to discuss this now."

"Cilwenu-"

"It has never truly been about me and my emotional, mental state. You could have just said nothing at all from the start." She didn't plan to stay a moment longer, and so she didn't.

Her heart was pounding when she left the room, shoving open the classroom door with as much force as she could muster. She felt her stomach turning while her throat tightened and tears filled her eyes. Who could she run to? She didn't even know where Draco was, and his lackeys were most likely on high alert if Pansy had anything to do with it. She could only assume he was in one of the common rooms, because that's where he was when there was nothing else to do for the day.

What triggered her more, was that the strap to her bag kept slipping off her shoulder, and getting caught in her hair whenever she tried to re-adjust.

She was far too preoccupied with that for the moment, that she didn't even realize she had run into Theodore Nott and a couple of his friends. Theodore, of course, was amused. He knew all about Cilwenu, and was one of the brightest guys in her father's class. She had seen Severus chat with him far more than he had ever with her. He was pretty popular with the other girls, too. Pansy had even admitted how "charming" she thought Theodore could be.

He smirked down at her, and grabbed the strap to her bag to slip it off her arm entirely. Cilwenu gave him a confused expression, but she was stopped in her tracks, catching her breath to calm herself down.

"May I please have my belongings back?"

"First, you tell me where you're rushing off to." Theodore responded, coolly.

She went to grab her bag, but he reeled back, raising his arm so that she couldn't reach from the angle he held it. His smirk turned into a toothy smile - he must have thought this was amusing, or something.

"I'm not rushing. Theodore, please give my bag back."

"Why are you alone? Where is your partner?"

"I am going to see him right now, if you must know. I will not ask you again to give my bag back to me, Theodore."

He complied, giving Cilwenu her belongings back, but also ushering out one more tease when he quickly jerked it back slightly from her hand. She threatened to jolt him in his stomach, to which he laughed and commented about her attitude. She would never understand the appeal towards Theodore, if that was the way he acted towards other girls. Yet, maybe it was his persistence that got him what he wanted.

When Cilwenu walked away from him, slowing her pace this time, he trailed behind. She noticed, and groaned in frustration.

"Do you require anything else from me, Nott? Don't you have loads of people who would rather be in your company?" She said to him.

He laughed again, catching up to her, his strides following hers as he walked beside her, "Why are you so angry?"

"It really is none of your business, and Draco will not be pleased to see you walking with me to meet him." She hoped it would make him back off, but she should have suspected that it wouldn't be that easy. Her anxiety was climbing again, and she looked around for any sign of Crabbe or Goyle... or even Pansy.

Speak of the devil too soon, and sometimes she comes to fruition.

Pansy and Millicent whispered between themselves upon spotting Cilwenu and Theodore. Pansy bit her lip with excitement, approaching Theodore as if she was somehow gliding towards him. She eyed him up and down first, then directed her attention to Cilwenu. This wasn't making Cilwenu look good at all, considering Pansy had already been taunting her with telling Draco lies about what she witnessed when Cilwenu went into the empty classroom with Harry.

What would Pansy say to Draco about Theodore? Nothing truthful, even if Cilwenu had planned on keeping it to herself.

"Fancy meeting you here, Theo."

"Oh, in the same hallway you see me in every single day, you mean?" Theodore was unphased by Pansy's closeness. It really painted a picture about how she liked attention - ulterior motives aside.

Cilwenu really wished that the lot of them would stop walking the same direction she was walking. Where was Draco when she needed him? Cilwenu was still flustered about the words she'd had with her father after his class, and just wanted to escape all of the awkwardness of the day entirely.

"Pray tell me what you are doing with someone like _Snape_?" Pansy gave Cilwenu a look of pure disgust when she mentioned her. Cilwenu cut her eyes, not wanting to comment and give her that type of satisfaction.

Theodore shrugged, "She ran into me, and now, here we are."

"You taunted me for absolutely no reason, and you make it sound like it was intentional that I ran into you." Cilwenu stopped walking yet again when she said this, "You held my bag over your head, taunting me until you were bored with it, and then followed me on your own accord... you pompous, conceited asshole-"

Cilwenu knew there was an alternate corridor to lead her to where she thought Draco might be, and when she spotted it in her peripherals, she wanted any means out.

"Hold your tongue-"

"And you..." Cilwenu pointed right at Pansy, "Always showing up when nobody asked for your opinions or your presence, for that matter. Shove off, the both of you."

Pansy looked rather displeased, Millicent making a noise of protest and offense behind her. Theodore's smug expressions were knocked down a peg once Cilwenu was finished. He didn't say anything, considering she was telling the truth anyways - but he didn't look pleased either.

Cilwenu darted around them, and found her way through the aforementioned corridor. Indistinct chatter from other peers could be heard fading away the further down she traveled, and it was music to hear ears to finally have some silence. It gave her those brief moments of coming down from her anxiety. Her tears fell then, without much of a choice.

She just wanted to be alone, if that was going to be her fate anyways. She realized that thinking this way was probably really dramatic, but how else is somebody supposed to feel when they're overwhelmed?

Absentmindedly, she found her way into one of the common rooms, where she dropped her bag at her feet and covered her face.

It was all rushing in on her like a tidal wave, every single mistake she had ever made. Every single conflict that had a profound impact on her...

Cilwenu felt like even though she was on speaking terms with her friends again, the fact that Ron would hardly look at her still really stung. She also knew that she couldn't blame him, because at the end of the day... Harry was forced to get over Cilwenu, and she felt at fault for his crush on her, but didn't know what she could do to change anything. It wasn't like she intended to hurt him that way. It wasn't like she meant to be with Draco, until she saw that deep, personal connection with him. The way they witnessed each other's weaknesses in relationships with their fathers.

The way she felt about Draco before and after was so drastic. She knew it was a bad look, she really did. She couldn't help it. He went from being so mean to her, to being so protective of her.

"What is this?" Draco's voice tore through the silence. His arms wrapped around her before she had the chance to open her eyes and see him.

He stroked her hair, pushing her head against his shoulder, her nose against his warm neck. She trembled, and continued to cry. This was intimate, this was strangely comforting, and Draco's arms were the only thing holding her together at that point. He pressed his lips against her temple - they were perfectly aligned, and alone. He wanted to know what was wrong, obviously.

"Darling, talk to me."

Cilwenu wrapped her arms around him in return, just wanting to take in the smell of peppermint a little bit longer. She drew back to look up into his eyes, shaking her head. Where should she begin?

"It's just Severus." Her response was shaky, "He asked me if you were still courting me one minute, then completely ignored me the next. It's s-stupid... I know better than to let it keep getting to me, but i...." She felt the sobs coming up again, stopping her from finishing her sentence.

Draco brought one hand to her cheek and wiped away the tears. He kissed her forehead. She wished that her friends could see it... just how gentle he was being with her in moments like this, because he was capable of caring about somebody other than himself. Draco did care about her... he hated to see her cry, now.

"I don't know why it matters."

"He's your father. Essentially the only family you have, and you want him to see that you matter." Draco kept his hand on her cheek, so she grabbed his hand and turned her head to kiss his wrist affectionately. He just stared at her, never taking his eyes away for a second. Her heart was picking up speed again, but it wasn't due to anxiety this time.

"Then, Nott was taunting me in the hallway and Pansy decided to join in. She's probably going to tell you that I asked him to walk with me, or something. I hate that awful, pretentious little-"

"Theodore Nott was taunting you?" Draco interrupted, fixated on that one part of the conversation, "Shall I have a talk with him?"

"I don't care about Nott a single bit, and you shouldn't either. He didn't make me feel this way, Draco." She kissed his wrist again, then the base of his palm.

He cleared his throat, still contemplating whether or not to confront the guy when Cilwenu wasn't around. He wasn't going to sit back and let somebody else taunt his girlfriend without some sort of warning.

"I'll be sure to deter anything Pansy might have to say, but for now... I am only concerned with getting you calmed down." He coaxed Cilwenu to sit with him on a nearby loveseat, "We don't have to talk, if you don't want to. You can just sit with me."

Why was it that he couldn't be like this all the time? She nodded her head, and followed Draco onto the loveseat, where he took her into his arms and kissed her salty face. She felt her cheeks warm with adoration, and her lips found his softly, sweetly. She could get lost in the taste of him, swirled around in a world where it felt like she was floating.

After the kisses, came the tender moment where he just held her, practically laying down in the loveseat with her. She buried her face into his chest, while he cradled the back of her head and held her to provide the intimate comfort that he knew she needed.

She could drift off to sleep like this.


	5. Lack of Humor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Stated in the description, I’m not sure how long this story will be. The original was a pretty long story for what it was. I used to be so obsessed with this fandom, and suddenly I love the characters all over again. Before I digress, I am hoping that even if not very many people read this, they will enjoy it. I’m trying to keep my inspiration ignited. I don’t want this rewrite to be as hectic and cringey as the original.
> 
> Sorry for the short chapter. Typed entirely on my phone on a work break.

“Do you think that eventually she will stop coming around altogether?” It’d been a few days since the group had seen Cilwenu, but from what Harry had heard, she had some sort of emotional breakdown in front of Pansy Parkinson and Theodore Nott. 

Unfortunately, nobody would know that was an exaggeration… and her breakdown was minuscule compared to what they said. She cried in front of her boyfriend, which wasn’t uncommon. Harry didn’t know those things though. He only knew what he heard, and thought to himself that Pansy wouldn’t say anything truthful about somebody she couldn’t care less about. 

He looked at Hermione for a moment, and she shrank down in her chair a bit. He didn’t realize how hard he stared at her, “Why would you say that? She’s our best friend.” 

Hermione nodded, “Harry, she’s going to continue to develop these feelings for Malfoy, and want to be around him all the time like most boyfriends and girlfriends do.” 

He folded his arms, looking away. 

“Whether you want to hear it or not, she’s with him and she’s not changing that, clearly.” 

“We don’t have to like Malfoy, but we can at least give her a little more credit than that.” 

Ron wasn’t present, but it was because he was off somewhere with Lavender. She had insisted that he spend some time with her, and who was he to pass up an afternoon off with snogging involved? Harry wondered what that must be like. 

“How does it make you feel seeing Ron with Lavender?”

“It makes me feel nothing at all, Harry.” 

Hermione cleared her throat, looking down at her hands with brows raised, emphasizing... “I feel nothing at all.”

“Right.”

-

His head was in her lap, while she played with his white-blonde hair between her fingers. Another time off to spend with her boyfriend was seemingly what the doctor ordered, as they say. She leaned in to kiss him whenever she had the chance, because once his friends came back, there would be no more of the tenderness in front of them. 

For that time being, though, Draco reached up and cupped Cilwenu’s cheek, brushing his thumb along her skin softly. She made soft a noise of content, smiling. 

“I am so comfortable.” He breathed, turning his head towards her abdomen, dropping his hand so that he could wrap his arms around her as if she were his beacon of comfort. 

His warm breath through her clothes made her nervous, but she continued to stroke his hair. Cilwenu could sit like this for hours, skip classes all the time and just hide away if it meant she could feel as content as she did doing so. However, intimacy was good in small doses, and once Draco heard the thumping of footsteps approaching the common room, he sat up straight. Cilwenu was disappointed when his warmth left, the way her legs woke up after his weight lifted off them. They were always ruining things for her. 

“Just came back from the most amusing thing.” Goyle snickered, with Crabbe following right behind him. 

Draco was still smoothing out the wrinkles of his clothes, arching a brow in curiosity. Perhaps it was interesting to them, but no so much Draco. They were always getting themselves into boring predicaments, although it seemed to excite them either way. He would humor them, though, because who else would? 

“Is that so? What did you find so amusing that you had to come and interrupt us?” 

Cilwenu grinned, but remained silent. 

Goyle was still laughing when he spoke, as if whatever he saw… or did… was the best thing to happen all week. It was frustrating because like Draco had said, they interrupted them, regardless if it was going to happen sooner or later anyways. 

“Ran into Weasley-“ 

That got Cilwenu’s attention, and she straightened in anticipation to hear what he had to say next.

“-and his little girlfriend.” Crabbe added. 

Goyle shot him a disgruntled look. Apparently Goyle wanted to tell the story himself, without Crabbe’s two cents. He turned back to face Draco and Cilwenu, “Their backs were facing us, but I could see candy in Brown’s bag. So, I bet with Crabbe that I could take it from her… like candy from a baby-“ 

“Hurry it up, will you. I’m bored already.” 

Cilwenu shifted uncomfortably, because Ron was most likely going to still be angry by the time she even saw him. Harry and Hermione would have heard about this by then, and she feared this would restart their frustrations with her all over again. 

“When Crabbe reached into her purse, Weasley noticed, then tried to push us out of the way.” 

“Then?” 

“Let’s just say that Weasley has a lovely shade of bruise around his eye for it.” The two erupted with laughter, while Cilwenu failed to find the humor in this whole story. Draco seemed amused at their expense, and she wanted to bolt out of the common room to make sure Ron was okay. If she did, then it would cause an argument for she and Draco. She had to choose the lesser of two evils in terms of how she wanted Draco’s mood. She could always catch up with Ron later… no matter how much she was afraid of what he would say to her, or their friends. 

  
  



	6. Conflict & Misunderstanding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is feeling like a lot of teenage drama, which makes me cringe... but i am going to actually try and map out where I plan on going with this whole fiction. There are a few ideas inside my head but this week has already beaten my ass and it’s only Monday.

Cilwenu told Draco that Severus needed her later that afternoon without any real substance to the lie. She made it look casual when she left the common room, then picked up her pace once she left. Her mind whirled with concern in search of her friends, because they could be anywhere at that point in time. She spent about fifteen minutes in her endeavors, before spotting them in the dining hall, Ron waving his hands animatedly. He must have only just found their friends.

She ran over to them, Ron’s voice growing louder with each step she took. He was red in the face, but it paled in comparison to the purplish red around his left eye, like Goyle had mentioned. Cilwenu wasn’t fully prepared for just how mad Ron was when he saw her coming up. 

The way he looked at her was as if she was some sort of plague. It was enough to make her stop in her tracks, and he groaned at her presence. 

“Malfoy’s a real piece of work, and so are his friends. Did he send you for a full report on my face?”

Hermione whispered Ron’s name under her breath as a warning, but he ignored. He wasn’t going to back down from this as easily as he normally would. Cilwenu shook her head, parting her lips to speak on her defense.. because she wasn’t the one that had done this to him. She wasn’t the one who laughed at his pain and the fact that he was probably pretty damn humiliated to have been decked by Goyle, no less. A boy who was notably much bigger than Ron, but probably with a much smaller I.Q.

“Lavender is in bits, by the way. She ran to her room right after it happened and refuses to come out. Had they touched her, it would have been a big mistake. You should feel really shitty about the way your boyfriend lets his friends treat people, but he was probably impressed, wasn’t he? He’s too much of a coward to do anything like that himself, and what does that have to say about you?”

“Stand down, Ron.” Harry warned, watching the emotions play across Cilwenu’s face. She was becoming anxious by how rapidly her heart began to pound. 

She wanted to yell at Ron how it wasn’t fair to group her together with everybody Draco associated with. How could she expect Ron to believe her if she told him that Draco didn’t even deploy them to taunt him and Lavender? Cilwenu thought that Ron might know her better than that, but his impression of her had been marred by her own choices, and she couldn’t defend them without him getting angrier.

“It’s not like that… i-“

“As long as you’re his girlfriend, don’t come around me thinking we are still going to be friends. Harry and Hermione might want you around, but even they struggle.”

Harry stepped forward this time, “I told you to stand down-“

“Too afraid to tell her yourself? Is that it? Don’t pretend like you and Hermione don't talk about her behind her back about how she makes the wrong choices. What type of friend is she? She chooses a bully over the people who were there for her instead of feeling sorry for her.”

It was the immediate change the moment they all found out that she was dating Draco that really threw her for a loop. Ron basically said it, alongside saying some of the things she thought in the back of her mind. Instead of feeling sorry for her? That struck a chord. A big chord. 

Cilwenu lay awake at night sometimes and thought about it. Her dreams were consumed of her subconscious fears that she would lose them all… She knew the risks she was taking every time she met up with Draco in the library and spent time making out with him when she told her friends they were working on a project. Each touch, each whisper, and each time she felt those little butterflies in her stomach also brought along wasps that stung her in the pit. 

She glanced between Harry and Hermione, unable to bring herself to do anything but turn around and walk in the other direction. Hermione called out to her, but it was Harry that followed after her. She was trying to push back the tears that were blurring her eyesight the further she walked away. There was no place for her in Ron’s life, and she assumed that eventually it would be like that for all three of them. Surely if Ron wanted nothing to do with her, then Harry wouldn’t want to step on Ron’s toes and remain friends with Cilwenu. Hermione’s hidden emotions towards Ron wouldn’t allow her to do that either. 

It would go back to walking through the halls longing for the things that brought them apart wouldn’t have done so much damage. It reminded her that it had already happened once, but it was going to happen again if she wasn’t careful. She couldn't stand the thought of watching Harry, Ron, or Hermione walking past her like she didn’t exist again. She fought for Harry, her best friend, to come back to her life and thought that would repair everything else. Perhaps she should have tried a little harder with Ron, and even Hermione too. 

Cilwenu probably didn’t give them much credit, but she was so scared everybody around her would eventually stop caring about her that she was blinded by it. Her own father acted like she was nothing to him. It was a cycle repeating in her head that she couldn’t control. 

“Wen… Wen!” Harry called out, “Please stop, we need to talk about this.”

Cilwenu choked on a sob when her mouth opened, preventing her from saying anything to Harry in return. If she kept going, would he continue to follow her? She knew that Harry was as persistent as he was genuine. He wasn’t going to let her cry alone, and he indeed would trail her until she stopped knowing how badly Ron had hurt her feelings. Ron had never been that mad at Harry before - he didn’t know that he was capable of holding a grudge like that. What was he going to say that would make anything better for Cilwenu? Ron was stubborn, he told her that before.

“You know Ron is only angry-“

“Harry, he is never going to stop being angry at me!” Cilwenu said as she continued to walk, not turning her head to look back at him for a second. Harry followed her into the courtyard, where there was hardly anybody around for the hour that it was. It was silent, only the sound of their feet against the cobblestone steps and the plush grass. 

“Hey, come on… talk to me.” 

His hand grabbed her by the wrist, and Cilwenu tried to wriggle her way out of his grasp. She didn’t struggle for long, a defeated noise leaving her mouth once she finally faced him. She looked up into his eyes, unable to stop her tears from falling. She felt like it was selfish to have her feelings hurt considering Ron’s face was bruised. She felt like it was selfish to want both worlds… one where she had her boyfriend, and one where she had her friends… and they understood where she was coming from. 

“Wh-what…?”

“I’ll talk to Ron, get him to calm down. If somebody punched you in the face and teased your girlfriend, you would be upset too.” Harry let her go, but only because he knew that she had given up and wasn’t going to bolt away from him. 

Cilwenu let out a shaky breath, looking from Harry’s eyes to the clouds above. The brightness made her squint. She wondered what it would be like to float up into the sky and be one of those clouds. She would be miles and miles away from the hurt feelings and conflict. It would feel so much safer, calmer. 

“It’s not the fact that he’s mad at me over Crabbe and Goyle.” She responded, “He just said that he would never be friends with me as long as I’m with Draco, and that sucks. It just sucks… and then I feel like I’m the selfish one for staying with him.”

Harry ducked his head, hands behind his back, “You were our friend before you started dating Malfoy, and Ron knows that, but he’s just angry for the moment.”

“It’s been weeks. Ever since I found out that you had feelings for me, he has done nothing but spout sarcastic remarks, scoffs, and monotone conversation with me. Maybe a few words each time, and I can’t make you guys understand why I do the things that I do. I never meant to hurt any of you… this is just teenage drama, and I can’t break away from it, it seems.”

“You’re right.” Harry sighed, “I was hurt, but I also know that it’s not always your fault who you have feelings for.” 

She shook with sobs, holding her face because it was welling up within her and she could no longer contain it. Harry wrapped his arms around her, and cradled the back of her head against his shoulder. He just held her while she cried, because it was what he thought was the best thing to do. She felt so stupid for crying so much the last few days, but the emotions were heavy.

Neither one of them realized that Draco did send Crabbe and Goyle after Cilwenu after she left him in the common room. Her loose explanation for her leaving to meet her father after she had just spent the last couple days crying over Severus and being consoled by Draco just seemed a little odd to him. He would do it himself if he thought that he could control his temper, and if he didn’t have something else to attend to that required his focus and physical self. 

So, while Draco was off at practice, Crabbe and Goyle were lurking around the courtyard, witnessing Harry embracing Cilwenu in the light of day, as if they had no shame at all. 

-

“Malfoy!” Pansy approached the blonde while he drank half a bottle of water, drenched in sweat with his bangs stuck to his forehead. He rolled his eyes, unamused to see her there instead of somebody worth his time. 

“I’m a little busy.”

“This is worth your time, I promise.” 

“Make it quick.”

“I was told by a couple birdies that your beau was in the arms of another man in the courtyard moments ago.”

Draco knit his brows together, immediately dialed into what Pansy had to say. She looked annoyingly smug, and surely she wouldn’t make up some bogus rumor to get Draco riled up for no reason. She always stuck her noses in places she didn’t source herself, and pulled out information from those boys pretty easily. It was obnoxious, but impressive, sometimes. 

Pansy checked her nails, waiting for Draco to react, but he was taking longer than she expected he would. “Did you hear what i just said?”

“Who was she with?”

Her smug grin intensified, “Oh, yes.. Potter, I think.”

“Potter…” Draco practically spat his name out like a bad taste in his mouth. He would probably get fussed at for leaving practice early, but he wasn’t going to let Harry Potter make any sort of moves on his girlfriend. 

-

“I got mascara on your clean white shirt…” Cilwenu tried to wipe it away with her sleeve, but it only smeared the mascara further, except now there were patchy gray specks all over the pocket. 

Her eyes were puffy and her breath was still shaky, but she felt like she had cried everything out. If Harry said he was going to talk to Ron then perhaps it would do her good to see what type of difference that would make. Even if it didn’t put a dent in the way Ron felt currently, then at least Harry would have tried. She hugged Harry one more time, her arms lingering around his waist.

Harry smiled, “I have other shirts, it’s not a problem.”

“I don’t deserve you…”

“That’s silly-“

Before the conversation could go further, the two of them hopped apart from one another when Cilwenu caught a glimpse of Draco to her right. She felt her skin prickle, the color leaving from her face when she pictured what that might look like to Draco, having no context. She lied to him in the first place, and that was bad enough.

“Funny, I thought you were going to see your father.” He shook his head, “Pansy alerted me that you were here after she found out.”

“Draco. This isn’t what it looks like, I promise.” Cilwenu moved away from Harry, giving him a cautious look, before going up to Draco. 

He looked at her, “What is it supposed to look like? You lied to me about why you were leaving, and then Pansy comes and tells me that you’re out here embracing Potter… of all people.”

“I- I was upset, you don’t even know what happened-“

“All I know is that you lied to me.” Draco looked at Harry then, “You have some nerve, you know.”

Harry stood still, beside himself, “Don’t make assumptions about what you think is happening, Malfoy… Unlike you, I care about her feelings and listen to her.”

“You think that I don’t listen to her?” He scoffed, “Who spent the last couple days with her while she cried about her father treating her like she was nothing? Not you, was it? Who trusted her to tell the truth when she said she was going to meet up with her father, even though it sounded odd after everything I just said?”

“Oh, yeah, terribly trusting when you suddenly know where she was as if you don’t have eyes everywhere in this school, right? Anybody is smart enough to know that you probably send off your friends to watch her every move. Pansy was nowhere around the courtyard when I followed your girlfriend here. How would she have known?”

Draco reached for Cilwenu’s hand, not acknowledging Harry’s response. He beckoned her to come to him then, knowing she would. 

“We’re leaving.”

“Draco, let me explain…”

“Come with me, or I am leaving without you, and then i will decide whether or not you explain yourself at all.”

One last look at Harry, the desperation in her eyes because she knew that she was going to go with Draco. She had to explain herself, even if it meant that Harry was left alone in the courtyard after he just calmed her down from the confrontation with Ron. This whole thing would further damn Draco to be the bully, and she was never going to make them see that he wasn’t always like this. She would never be able to tell them that he was caring and nurturing to her when they were alone. He was justified in being upset with her for lying… this wasn’t manipulation, right?

“Harry, I have to-“

“I get it.” On some level he did, but he also wanted to put Draco in his place for being so empty headed and not giving her a chance to talk about it. Sure, she lied, but it didn’t sit well with him that she felt like she had to lie to her boyfriend in order to see her friends. 

Cilwenu took Draco’s hand and walked off with him, wincing at how tightly he was holding her fingers. She didn’t look back at Harry, even though she really wanted to.

  
  
  
  



	7. Distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Italics” will indicate flashbacks, so sorry if that’s not particularly clear! Also, apologies for how long this seems to be drawn out. I made notes of things on my docs (where this is typed up on my iPad) to keep track of what I want to put in and explain. I really do need to finish the side story about “The Library” to better explain why Cilwenu “suddenly” changes her mind about Draco and yeah...

Cilwenu dreaded the lengthy travel back to her home, but it was time for a break and she unfortunately had no plans to see anybody. Draco was still frustrated with her over seeing her with Harry in the courtyard, but she had smoothed it over a little bit, somehow. He was most likely going to have Crabbe and Goyle shadow her more often though, which was going to be a nuisance for sure. 

_ “You won’t even give me a chance to tell you what happened because you are so fixated on me telling one little white lie.” _

_ Draco had his arms crossed over his chest as he stood in front of her, lips pressed together. Maybe he should have given her a little leeway, but he was just as stubborn as any other teenage boy. Would it have been any better for her to tell the truth, though? It burned him up that she spent time crying in Potter’s arms when she would have never been crying in the first place had she not chased after Weasley hearing Crabbe and Goyle laugh about the encounter they’d had. She had told him that much, about how she wasn’t comfortable with them talking about her friend like that. As far as Draco knew, he thought that Ron was an idiot anyways. What should it matter if he wanted to repair their friendship?  _

_ “You don’t know what this is doing to me. I shouldn’t be worrying about my relationship tearing apart my friendships. Friends who I have had before you and I even started dating.” _

_ “I’ve known you since you were five, but you err to remember that fact. Our fathers are colleagues, and we’ve been associated years before you met them.”  _

_ Cilwenu was through with crying but it was just becoming frustration at that point. When would her worlds collide and just become easier? She hated the mess as much as she hated the thoughts about just disappearing and being all alone.  _

_ Dramatic teenage thoughts were the worst. Raging hormones and a need for dominance were potent but the dominance part was mainly on Draco. He was stifling and stuck in his ways, because anybody with less of a social status just had to be beneath him. A glimpse of the way he was raised, and maybe that wasn’t all Draco’s fault, but he wanted to impress his parents so much that he agreed with most of the things they said. It was like he and Cilwenu never had that moment in the library where Draco told her things about his father that he wouldn’t tell anybody else.  _

_ “You’re angry with me because I lied. I understand, and you’re angry with me for embracing Harry, but it’s nothing like that with Harry. He’s my best friend and I’m trying really hard to maintain my friendships. Ron is angry at me for what your friends did to him and Lavender.”  _

_ “I didn’t tell Crabbe and Goyle to taunt them. People do stupid things when they’re bored, and we are no different.”  _

_ “You have always tormented them. Me, back in the day, don’t you remember?”  _

_ He shook his head because it meant he was over the conversation and wanted it to end. Draco told Cilwenu that he was tired and didn’t want to keep this up for the rest of the night. While he was still her boyfriend, he expected her to spend most of her time with him and confide in him before anybody else. He wasn’t particularly saying that she couldn’t have friends of her own, but without words Cilwenu knew his insecurities were preying on his logic. He felt threatened by Harry, but he wouldn’t say that.  _

As she sat her bags down after entering the house, she looked around her. Nothing had changed, just like it was before, and nothing probably ever would change. Silence was buzzing, and it looked like the maid on duty was done for the evening. She was exhausted, and only wanted to lay in her bed and fall asleep if she could. No thoughts of Draco, her friends, just sleep. 

_ “Are you going to talk to me over the break?” Cilwenu asked Draco, the night before she had to pack a bag for a mandatory, ‘students must return home for a week’, break. Something about the school needing to be cleaned, and teachers needing time alone in their classrooms without teenagers mucking up their lessons. Her father said it was sort of a recharge, like any normal school would do.  _

_ Draco was icy when he was upset, and she should have anticipated as much. He didn’t have to act this way if he wasn’t so damn hard-headed. She wouldn’t be going through this if she just made things easier on herself. A week away is probably what they needed, everyone needed.  _

_ She wondered what Harry and the others were going to be doing. If they would see each other, or just wait the seven days and reunite as if they’d been gone for much longer.  _

_ “I believe that my parents are having another party while we are on break. We can speak then”  _

_ “You’re really taking this a little far, Draco. It was one lie, and I even admitted to it. Owned up, apologized. What more do you want?”  _

_ He shook his head at her, “I need to know that you’re not just going to keep lying to me. I can’t trust anybody who lies to me even once. How do I know you’re not going to sneak off and be with Potter while I’m gone and tell me you’re doing school work. You know, like you did when you and I were sneaking around.” _

_ “You already want me to spend most of my time with you and I agreed to that. You can’t shut me out for an entire week and not expect me to be happy about it. I deserve a little reprimanding, but not a complete shut out from my boyfriend.”  _

_ She didn’t get much out of him after that, and hardly a goodbye at the train. Draco sat with Pansy on the train, which he purposely did to make her jealous. Cilwenu didnt even try to it in the compartment with her friends, because it wouldn’t be comfortable so long as she had to walk on eggshells.  _

Severus wouldn’t be home much, and so she would have their dark, gloomy house mostly to herself. As she climbed the stairs towards her room, she felt her eyes getting heavier and heavier. 

-

Cilwenu woke up in the morning, her curtains blocking out most of the light from her room. She didn’t remember even getting into bed, or changing her clothes. She didn’t even think she had a single dream while she slept either. Perhaps she didn’t realize how tired she truly was from all the stress and senseless drama from her daily life at school. She could embrace the silence and use the “recharge” herself, because there was no laughter, there was no Pansy, there was no anybody being down her throat about every little thing she did.

Cilwenu didn’t exactly feel refreshed, but a couple more nights of sleep like that… and she would probably feel a little brand new. Maybe that was an exaggeration of some sort. 

She drew herself a bath, the works with bubbles and even a few candles she carried carefully from her room. If she had flower petals, she would have sprinkled them in, but the only flowers that were around the house were dead ad preserved… some weird thing her father did for reasons she couldn’t think about. 

After her bath, she sat in the kitchen while breakfast was made for her, and the cup of coffee she had blissfully warmed her insides. She underestimated the peace that could come from her home, even though she had spent so much time isolated there when she wasn’t at school. 

Her father didn’t drink coffee, and she didn’t like tea. He didn’t like many sweets, and she loved to indulge in French toast from time to time. If only she could be having breakfast in the dining hall with her friends. Through all the silence, and relief that she didn’t have to face the issues brewing in the background, she still felt it creep up into her thoughts. She picked at her food then, having lost her appetite. 

Regardless, she thanked the maid, and then went back into her room, opening the curtains. She wrapped her cardigan around her tighter, just staring at the people walking by. What were they chattering about? Did they have concerns and worries similar to hers? Was this typical of a teenager? No, they probably didn’t have jealous boyfriends who basically told them they couldn’t be around their friends thanks to his insecurities. She stood there and thought about Draco, and all the things she adored about him, and then all the things she wished he would change. 

Pros and cons were lists you made about an ultimate decision. If she weighed the cons, including the ones from the past years… how she used to think he was entitled and snobby. She would flat out tell him that she would never give him the benefit of the doubt, and never make nice with him like their parents hoped she would. Despite all of that, she ended up being his girlfriend. Cilwenu didn’t even know what his parents thought about them being together. Would they even approve? She didn’t know if Severus approved, only that he knew she was still being “courted” by him.

_ “You and Potter are perfect for one another.” _

_ “What are you talking about, Malfoy?” Cilwenu knew he was following her this whole time, stalking her down the corridor as she had just left her friends to find some peace and quiet in order to study. _

_ Draco chuckled, and she was annoyed by the sound of his voice, much less the sound of his amusement on top of that, “Oh, I’m just complimenting your choice in men, since you would rather hang around with all the bottom feeders of this school.” _

_ “Why do you think that you are so high up on the totem poll that you have to belittle me and my friends every chance you get? It’s no wonder I declined your companionship when we were five… I dodged a bullet back then.” _

_ “It’s your loss.”  _

She remembered many of the times where he would walk by her, Pansy at his side making snorting noises at her expense. She remembered how he would laugh and comment on every little thing with that smug look on his face. Somehow, though, she saw him change drastically when they were paired together for that project in chemistry class. 

“ _ You know, my mother told me that women could be complicated and hard when they are struggling with attraction they would rather deny. Perhaps if I were nicer to you, then you would soften up... not be so in denial." _

_ "I'm not attracted to you, Malfoy." She let out a ragged breath before the response, "You're mad." _

_ "Of course, my father never really had the same opinions of women. You should hear the way he talks to my mother sometimes." He looked at her for a brief second, "The way he talks to me..." _

Cilwenu turned away from her window, then sat down on her bed, looking down at her hands. There was every reason for her to break up with Draco and just leave that part of her behind, but she was so wrapped up in thoughts of him being cross with her over a little lie that it really was driving her mad. 

Every single touch, kiss, and tender moment came rushing to the forefront of her thoughts after each negative memory, that it all faded away. Was it that she was caught up in the moment and lost in the attention he gave to her that nobody else ever had? She adored the way he looked at her sometimes. She completely understood why her friends were also lost with the choices she made concerning Draco. It was the conflict that she didn’t want to face, but would have plenty of time to think about while she was home. 

Maybe she should go back to sleep and deal with it at a later time. Seemed logical enough. She didn’t know how to contact Draco without actually ringing his landline, and Cilwenu wasn’t sure who would be on the other line should she do such a thing. She really would have to wait to see him at Malfoy Manor at the “party” he mentioned while he was busy trying to shut her out. 

That meant she would probably need to do some shopping for an outfit for that very day, because nothing she already owned would do any good, of course. The problem was that she never went shopping like that on her own, and she would have to for the first time in her entire life, which would seem incredibly unbelievable to a “normal” person. 


	8. Ocean Grey & Platinum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story isn’t completed. I don’t know how to change it to be “in progress”. So SOS.

_ She sat there next to him, engrossed in the things he had to say… how eloquently he spoke about his home life. The only parts she knew about were what she witnessed herself whenever she was there in person. Cilwenu didnt know what her opinions were about Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, aside from that she never really spoke to them directly. Even when Severus spoke to them, it was short and to the point. She had always been confused how they all became associated with one another and how it panned out. Best she didn’t know, because she honestly wasn’t sure the details would make a difference to her.  _

_ Suppose she would have more to talk about concerning the relationship with Severus is he opened up to her at all.  _

_ Cilwenu found herself in awe at the fact that she was paying this much attention to Draco. The first few days in the library with him were not exactly picturesque, but she didn’t expect them to be either. She hadn’t planned on doing anything more than begrudgingly mapping out project details with Draco. If somebody had told her she would be sitting there listening to him with his guard down, she probably would have laughed in their face and walked away. _

_ She could laugh at herself in the mirror and it would suit just as well. _

_ “Your friends don’t see this side of you, do they?” Cilwenu asked, unsure of what else to say, really.  _

_ Draco grinned, “I am never one for talking about my thoughts unless it’s for my own amusement, as you well know. I can’t sully my reputation with trivial emotions and be bothered by how much they can bring me down.” _

_ So, that indicated that he had been brought down by his own thoughts before. He was an only child, too, which was pretty lonely in Cilwenu’s experience. Draco probably wanted siblings at some point in his life, but perhaps not. He was given everything that he wanted, handed to him on silver platters and fed to him with silver spoons. A part of her envied that, because she would love to have had a relationship with her parents. She didn’t know a single thing about her mother, and those thoughts brought her down all the time.  _

_ “I’m sure friends like yours listen to you prattle on about your problems.” _

_ “Friends like mine…” Cilwenu repeated, not quite liking the way he phrased it, but also not that surprised he would. “Meaning?” _

_ “Look, I don’t care for Potter and his little posse… They aren’t my type of people.” _

_ “Because they won’t do what you tell them to?” She retorted, “They won’t follow you around like Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe? Don't pine over you like Pansy Parkinson? You… you are so full of yourself, aren’t you?”  _

_ Cilwenu wanted to leave him there, right after she punched him in his smug little face. How could he go from soft to ice cold in a matter of minutes? It was a bipolar experience, and she didn’t like the sudden changes, it confused her. Maybe she was just frustrated that she was starting to look forward to seeing him in the library, considering he talked to her the whole time about the things he apparently didn’t with anybody else. So, why her? _

_ “What’s your problem, Snape? You act like you expected anything less.” The sarcasm came across incorrectly, and she made a noise of protest.  _

_ Cilwenu pushed herself back abruptly, and stood so quickly that her chair clattered to the floor. The librarian shushed them from her desk, but Cilwenu didn’t care how loud it was. She was over it, because the more she sat there and listened to him, the more she thought it was all just some sort of act to get her reaction. She didn’t stop to think that the sarcasm, the bullying, and everything else was the actual act. Draco put on a face because he didn’t want people to think that he was weak. _

_ He put on the face to hide his insecurities and it wasn’t justified for him to be as awful to people as he was, but it was a fleeting moment of self assurance that left as fast as it came.  _

_ “I don't know what to expect with you.” _

_ “Admit that you have a thing for me, and I’ll let you storm off and pretend like you never said it at all.” _

_ “Like I told you before, I am not attracted to you… you mental, ignorant, self-obsessed-“ _

_ Draco was standing over her in a matter of seconds, but it was like slow motion to Cilwenu when he was within inches of her face. She was rambling on about this and that, but he was tuning it out for the most part. He kept nodding his head with that little grin on his lips, before he grabbed the side of her face and leaned in. _

_ If there was ever a moment to scream, it would be then. She felt his lips against hers, the oddest sensation she had ever felt, and all she could think about was how soft they were. Cilwenu hardly moved a muscle, but Draco kept kissing her, and then she began to think about how warm it felt. Was her face as red as her pulsing blood? _

_ “Wh-“ Once the kiss was over, she pushed against his chest, “You really ARE mental, Draco Malfoy!” _

_ - _

_ The trouble with feelings was the fact that these new ones were so unexpected. She felt blind-sided, because she could have had them for any other guy in that school aside from Draco.  _

_ She had nobody to tell either. Cilwenu had to confront Draco and tell him that it could never happen again. She had to set him straight and make sure that he knew he should have never crossed that line.  _

_ Approaching him in the library, she saw that he was already in the same chair, at the same table, with the same amused grin on his face. She practically threw her bag down at his feet, grabbing him up by his tie - but he didn’t really resist her.  _

_ “Come to throw yourself at me?” He mused.  _

_ “I came to ask you never to touch me like that again. You should have never…” She nervously looked around them, lowering her voice, “...kissed me, Draco.” _

_ “You kept talking and talking, so how else could I have shut you up?” _

_ “Asked me to calm down, like a normal person!” _

_ “Oh, since that usually goes over well, doesn’t it?” _

_ She yanked his tie harder, then dropped it with a defeated noise. He was impossible, but she stood there staring at him, unable to get the thought of him kissing her out of her head. Cilwenu didn’t think of herself as this confrontational person, but she wanted to pummel the shit out of his entitled ass.  _

_ “Why are you doing this to me? Do you have some sort of bet with your mates to stir things up… or are you bored? What are you getting out of this, i don’t understand… i just-“ _

_ “You’re about to go on another rant, aren’t you?” Draco rest his chin on his hand, looking up at her, absently poking her bag with the point of his shoe a couple times.  _

_ “I didn’t make any bet. Maybe I’m bored, though.” _

_ “I’m being serious, and I demand to know why you did what you did.” _

_ “I told you why.” He breathed out, “So, if you don’t want it to happen again, why are you so fixated that it happened in the first place?” _

_ “It was inappropriate.” _

_ “You enjoyed yourself!” He tapped the side of his head with his index finger, shooting Cilwenu a wink. She didn’t like that one bit.  _

_ “Well, I wouldn’t exactly know-“ _

_ “What do you mean?” _

_ She turned a couple shades darker, realizing what she was about to blurt out to him. She had never kissed anybody before, and Draco was her first kiss… ever. She refused to give him that sort of power over her, but he was able to piece it together eventually the longer she stood there leaving him without answer.  _

_ Draco bit his bottom lip, “I was the first.” _

_ When a teenage girl thought of a typical romantic notion, they probably didn’t plan it with the person who spent all of their time making other people miserable. She didn’t have a particular fantasy about her first kiss, but she didn’t think it would be with Draco. If anything, despite knowing that she wouldn’t pull Harry out of the friend-zone, she thought her first kiss would be with her best friend. Or, you know, some other respectable boy with manners. _

_ There was no meadow, no melody, no light that shined brightly upon them like an author would so poetically write in one of their novels. She felt that weird sensation of unknown territory and innocent curiosity, of wanting to do it again, and she hated that. How come she couldn’t have prevented him from kissing her? Why did he think that kissing her was the only way to get her to “shut up” as he so blatantly put it. Surely, he could have just let her go on about all the things she originally planned on saying. _

_ No, he had to go and complicate everything, as if he hadn’t done enough of that before.  _

_ “Am I really your first kiss?” _

_ Cilwenu swallowed, not wanting to answer the question. If he had to ask, he already knew.  _

_ “I think I should be going now.” _

_ “You came all this way to chew me out, and now you’re just going to leave?”  _

_ “Let’s just pretend like this never happened, and we can go about the project and never speak again.” _

_ It was never that simple, even in the romance novels. Nothing like that was ever as simple as one would wish it could be, and Cilwenu was ready to exit the library as fast as she could. Draco watched her turn around, noticing she left her bag behind, and he grabbed the strap as she moved through the aisles of bookcases. He sighed, and followed her, because she wasn’t as fast as she thought she was.  _

_ When he caught up, he grabbed her with his free hand, causing her to turn around and face him. It didn’t go as smooth as planned, though, because she tripped over her own feet, and accidentally pinned Draco to one of the bookcases behind him. He hissed in pain, then realized she was holding onto him for stability. Her cheeks were still red, but as she looked up at him, she began to wonder why she kept coming back again and again. Never mind the actual reason… but thinking about why a part of her actually looked forward to seeing him and listening to him talk. _

_ Cilwenu didn’t know then why she did what she ended up doing, when she grabbed Draco’s shirt and kissed him herself, just to feel that intense bizarre feeling she felt the very first time. _

She looked at herself in her full-length mirror, noting just how mature she looked when she wore this much makeup. Her legs looked longer in heels, and her body shape was more defined than if she was wearing her school uniform. Not that she was scantily clad, because she was still reasonably dressed, but… it made her think that Severus might ask her to change when he saw her. 

Cilwenu sprayed a little of her perfume on her wrists, and dabbed the extra on the sides of her neck. Same ponytail, same jewelry - it was time to go and see Draco at the Malfoy Manor.

Severus waited for her at the front door, having just put on his overcoat for the evening. He eyed his daughter, maybe parting his lips to make the comment she expected to make about her outfit. He decided against it, and she also put on her coat so that they could catch the ride together. It would be the first time in a long time that she would be sitting less than six feet away from her father and not in a classroom.

-

Entering into the Manor, Cilwenu felt her heart throbbing. The sound of her heels against the marble floors sounded extremely loud compared to the indistinct chatter in the rooms around them. Candles were lit and there were servants holding silver platters of hors d'oeuvres and flutes of champagne. Oh, how she really wanted to take two of those glasses and down them right there. She would have to settle for a virgin alternative, at least in front of Severus. 

The Malfoy’s two dogs were laying around near the fireplace, not on top of one another, but within the same two feet - which they were usually accompanied by Lucius Malfoy. He was, of course, entertaining the guests alongside Narcissa. 

Cilwenu didn’t see Draco right away, and she scoured the room with her eyes for any sign of him. She and Severus greeted Lucius and Narcissa, as guests would being in somebody else’s household, eating their lavish foods and drinking their expensive alcohol. 

While she was trying to keep her focus on the small talk between her and the other three adults, she saw Draco. Her whole body tingled with anticipation, because he was walking right towards them. He didn’t register that it was Cilwenu and Severus, if Cilwenu had to guess, by the way he looked at her in surprise. He knew she was coming, though. Maybe he half expected her not to. 

“Oh, Draco, look who finally arrived. “ Narcissa said, looking directly at Cilwenu. 

He nodded, definitely noticing her outfit, and being unable to take his eyes off her.

“Draco, won’t you take her and show her the new paintings we commissioned? She might like that, don’t you think?”

“Yes, mother.” Draco offered his arm to Cilwenu, which she didn’t hesitate to take. She missed his warmth, even if it had only been a few days since she last saw him. 

He was mostly silent, and she feared that he might be that way the whole night, even though he said they would be able to speak when he saw her there. Draco took her to the paintings, like his mother suggested, where he looked at Cilwenu’s side profile. 

“How have you been?”

“I’ve been well. I feel like I’ve finally gotten an abundance of sleep since I’ve been home.”

“And your father?”

She laced their fingers together, relieved that Draco didn’t pull away like she thought he might. He was still tense with her, she was certain. 

“Hardly there. I have been alone most of the time. It’s not all that bad.” She was nervous, “How have things been for you?”

“Mmm, indifferent.”

“Draco, I don’t want you to be angry with me anymore. I drove myself up the wall thinking about everything the other day, and I don’t want to be in this grey area of confusion and uncertainty.”

He arched his brow, making eye contact with her as she spoke. 

“I told you what you saw meant nothing like what you probably think. Harry is my best friend, and he was just trying to calm me down. Crabbe and Goyle really messed everything up with Ron, and it was already pretty messy. My friends say I shouldn’t be with you at all, and I just wish they could understand.”

“It was a matter of you telling me you were going to see your father and I heard from Pansy otherwise.”

“She has always been chasing after you.”

“How is that relevant to this?”

“Even if I hadn’t lied to you and she saw me hugging Harry, she would have made it out to be something it wasn’t, because her ulterior motives with me are because you chose me and not her. “

“Listen… I am not going to stay mad at you, but this has put a dent in the trust I have for you, and I can’t think of it anymore. Pansy has no chance with me, but you have to understand that I am, for all intents and purposes, used to getting what I want. You’re mine.”

She never knew what being “his” meant, and she probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend it without overthinking like she did every single thing he had ever said to her up to that point. While battling thoughts of why she was with him in the first place tricking back down into the fact that she didn’t want to lose him then, now, or maybe for as long as she could have him. 

Cilwenu let loose Draco’s hand and stood before him, wanting to take him into her arms and kiss him. 

Draco shook his head, the grin she adored so much making its appearance, just like she hoped it would, “You’re beautiful, by the way.”

“Oh, hush, Malfoy.”

  
  
  



	9. Garden of Emotions

_ “You’re mine.”  _

Cilwenu thought about what he said many, many times. His. Draco’s. What did it all mean? Was he falling for her as hard as she was falling for him? She was only sixteen, and he was almost seventeen. Could they really know what falling for another person meant? It was stereotypical of adults to tell teenagers that they were too young to comprehend true love. Cilwenu didn’t know if it were true love just yet, but it was strong, and it kept her at his side even through the difficulties. 

She wanted so badly to call someone and talk to them about it, but she couldn’t call Hermione. There’s no way she would want to sit and listen to Cilwenu talk about how she felt about Draco. Yet, she yearned for something she couldn’t understand and couldn’t bring herself to weigh out properly. If only she could talk to her mother. She would surely understand. 

Her mother had somehow fallen in love with Severus, and when she died… she probably died loving him. Surely she would be able to relate to Cilwenu having these feelings and this attachment to somebody like Draco. Then again, these were thoughts she could never satiate and would have to always wonder about...

Once Draco and Cilwenu had parted ways the night of the party, she didn’t know when she would see him again, or if she would see him at all before they went back to school. She didn’t want to slip back into those moments of doubt and uncertainty yet, but for that time her mind was consumed with thoughts of how happy she was that things were patched up for now. 

_ Narcissa Malfoy had sent them off to look at artwork, but instead they ended up sitting with one another in the Manor, wrapped up in one another’s arms as the soft music from the party lingered throughout the rest of the house. Draco was still tense, but he tried to hide it, and Cilwenu had known that it would take him getting over his ego for him to entirely get over the situation.  _

_ “I mean it. You’re so beautiful…”  _

She thought about him calling her beautiful and flushed with color. Would she see him before they boarded the train back to school? Would he still want to be with her once he sat alone with himself and collected his own thoughts and concerns? 

-

From a nap, she stirred to the sound of the doorbell. Cilwenu got out of her bed reluctantly, ready to hurry down the stairs to answer the door, when she caught wind of Severus chatting with another person. 

Confused, she had her ear to the door, left ajar, and tried to listen to what they were talking about. Only after a few brief moments, did she recognize Draco’s voice, and her whole body tingled with excitement. If he was there, she hoped that he was there to pick her up, which would most likely be the case. She didn’t see Draco wanting to hang around in her house with Severus lurking around.

Quickly, she fixed her hair, pulled on more fitting attire, and was touching up her face with makeup when she heard Severus call up to her. Her heart pounded nervously, because she was so unprepared and felt like she had to rush to get herself visibly ready for whatever Draco had planned. While she tracked down her socks and shoes, she told Severus to give her just a moment. One final spritz of vanilla perfume, and she was rushing out of her bedroom door and grinning as she approached the staircase. He looked so good in his street clothes, his hair slicked back neatly, and serious look on his face. It looked rather awkward seeing father and boyfriend standing together like that, but all of Cilwenu’s attention was pinpointed on her boyfriend. 

“Draco has come to pick you up. I see you are already dressed.” He must have thought it was premeditated on Cilwenu’s behalf, “I don’t need to remind you of your curfew.” 

She wanted to grab Draco and kiss him all over his face at the doorway, but seeing as how it would be highly inappropriate, she didn’t. Instead, she looked away from Draco and gave Severus a nod of agreement. She didn’t say much else, and she and Draco walked outside together. 

“Well, hello.” She said to him, smiling wide, her cheeks already hurting. 

He grabbed her hand, placing it in the bend of his elbow, “I want to show you something.” 

“Where are we going?” She asked him, “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“I decided this right before I came.”

“So, where are we going?” 

“My house.”

-

He’d taken her exactly where he said he would, but it didn’t seem like anybody else was around. By everybody else, she meant his parents. They moved through the house with Draco’s quick strides, until they made it through the doors that lead to the garden. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but as she drank in the view, it didn’t really matter to her what they did. It was a relatively chilly day, the light, misty fog setting the tone for the afternoon. She held onto his arm, like he had positioned her hand before, and waited for further instruction.

“My father had these landscaped when they got the house after marriage, because my mother always wanted something beautiful to look at in the mornings. He didn’t know which flowers to buy, since she didn’t specify, so… he got whatever he thought she would like.” Where was he going with this? There were some romantic bones in his father’s body, even though she vaguely remembered the way Draco spoke about his father’s thoughts on female emotion. 

“When I was little, I came out here with her and she would tell me all the different flowers, and I would repeat them back to her. Kind of feminine, but it was special.” This was another one of those rare moments where Draco opened up and allowed her to see a side of him that he wasn’t as open with his friends on. 

“I just felt like you should see this. The garden…”

Cilwenu looked up at Draco, his eyes straight ahead to look at the garden he seemed to love with a great fondness for his mother. Something so sentimental and soft, and she felt like maybe he did still trust her, at least with how he felt about his family… or maybe it was just because he was lonely too… Draco needed somebody to confide in who would actually listen and not judge him for having human emotions. 

“Do you know… I don’t even know what my mother looks like?” She said to him then, when she looked in the same direction and inhaled the breeze that swept by, “Severus won’t talk about her, and it’s like she doesn’t exist at all.”

While she had expressed her dismay over the relationship with her father a plethora of times with Draco, she never really mentioned her mother much. Not because it wasn’t important, and not because Draco never asked… but because it was painful. To have been picked on and bullied about being Severus’ daughter and being an illegitimate child to him and her dead mother… nobody understood how awful that felt. Well, except for Harry, who didn’t have his mother either. Although, that was a little irrelevant, and it would be wise for her to keep that thought to herself as she stood next to her boyfriend.

“I don’t know how much I look like her, or if I do at all. I have my father’s hair, his pale skin… but our eyes aren’t the same color.”

“Not his personality, thankfully. You are much more outspoken than he is.”

“I know this has nothing to do with flowers, but I envy people who have had time with their mothers… People who have good relationships with their fathers… or any type of relationship with them. I have nothing… he doesn’t care, and he doesn’t talk to me. It’s like I have a roommate who is also my teacher, who sometimes reprimands me for speaking my mind. I was maybe two when my mother died, and I have no memory of her whatsoever.”

Draco pulled Cilwenu close to him, his arms wrapped around her tightly, and she felt a rush of emotion flow over her. Her arms wrapped around him in return, and she just stood there in the comfort of knowing that he had listened to her, even if he hadn’t known what to say to her about her mother. His own family drama he spoke about every once in a while was different because he had both of his parents, and they were constant in his life. Despite the way his father talked and his mother tried to ward away anything that made Draco feel insecure, because she loved her son and would always be there to reassure him, he couldn’t imagine losing either one of them.

He couldn’t tell her to talk to Severus, considering it was to no avail. So, even though he would never have the right responses or the inkling of how it felt, he would try to be there for her because he thought that was what good partners did. The frustration he felt seeing her with Harry in the courtyard could be forgotten for a little while, because maybe it wasn’t exactly fair that he continued to hold that over her head. While he didn’t like the way her “friends” paraded around, it was only because they called him a bad guy, and so even before they came along… he developed this facade where he couldn’t show any sign of weakness at any cost.

Lucius taught him to believe that he could get whatever he wanted from whoever he wanted, and the bratty backlash when that sometimes did not happen was a result of being spoiled. Seeing his father walk around, head held high proudly… Draco thought that was how any man was supposed to act. Anybody who thought otherwise was weak and small. Not exactly the best lesson to teach a child, because it just developed over the years. He would never admit that, not to that extent, and he had opened up to Cilwenu far more than he ever expected. 

She stood in his arms, her perfume lingered into his nose and he sighed in content, because it was the most comforting smell he liked from the moment she started wearing it. While they met very young, he thought she should be on his side from the very start. Maybe part of him fed on her blatant loneliness and wanted to take advantage of it at first, but the more she rejected him, the more Draco realized she didn’t need anybody trying to claim her companionship. However, when he saw that she made friends with those three, and seemed happy to be surrounded by them, it turned to jealous rather than intrigue. 

She acted like her friends were the most important thing in her life, which was threatening considering he already felt pretty threatened by Harry Potter and his gang for reasons left uncertain. When he started with her in the library, he was sure it would have been the most insufferable experience of his life, because he really didn’t want to continue to be rejected the way that he was by her. Girls like Pansy fell over Draco, and yet he felt himself becoming attracted to a girl who acted like he was the worst human being on the planet aside from her father. For some reason, he continued to tease her, and that was why his insecurity had led him to start a rumor that she and Harry were a couple. 

Things changed pretty dramatically after the first time he kissed her. Draco knew he didn’t want anybody else and had never felt that way before. Even though she was not his first kiss, first girlfriend… none of them before her made him feel so territorial and possessive as he knew he was. She lied to him one time, and it triggered Draco because he honestly thought she was his property. Obviously that was selfish and ridiculous, but as he held her in his arms, he still fought off the image of her crying in Harry’s arms, and how she defended her actions with no regard to how lying to Draco made Draco feel.

“I wish I didn’t have to go back home.” She said to him as she lifted her head and looked up at him with her bright eyes and her pink cheeks. 

Draco rubbed her back, placed a kiss on her forehead, then pulled away from her completely. He didn’t really have a plan when he decided to go and pick her up from her house, other than showing her the garden and telling her about the flowers. He wanted an excuse to see her, was that so bad? Feelings were so tedious and bewildering, and he didn’t want her to go home either. 

“Is that because of me, or am I just an excuse to escape your prison?”

“Prison…” She repeated, concerned that what he said was not the response she expected. “No… Draco, you’re not an excuse.”

“Only kidding… I don’t want you to go home either.”

  
  



	10. Peculiar Dreaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry if the time off seems a little dragged out! I’m happy you guys are enjoying my older works that aren’t this story, in the meantime. I appreciate you guys!

“I don’t think that Severus will want me staying over.” Cilwenu said under her breath when they had been approached with the idea via Narcissa Malfoy once she and Lucius returned home. 

While she had spent most of the time there in the comfort of her boyfriend's company, she wasn’t sure how ready she was to be staying over at his house for a whole night. Viewing the gardens, having lunch prepared for them and it tasting absolutely delicious was very fulfilling to her. She loved sitting at the big table next to him, nothing but the sounds of their content humming and some light piano music Draco insisted be put on. She really didn’t expect to see his parents for whatever reason, and she was nervous enough before Narcissa brought up the suggestion. 

Draco wasn’t nervous about it at all, as if this part had been premeditated. Probably not. Her mind was working twice as hard thinking about sleeping and waking up in the house Draco grew up in. 

“My mother is pretty persuasive.” Cilwenu really had no chance to get a word in edgewise when the final decision was made. Somehow, they had gotten Severus to comply. Cilwenu was extremely confused as to how. 

It just didn’t seem like a good idea to allow a sixteen year old stay over at her boyfriend’s house. 

“You won’t be sleeping with me, I don’t understand why you’re so uptight about it right now.” 

“I’m not being uptight. I’m just…”  _ Hesitant _ . 

“It will be fine, I promise. If you don’t want to stay, we can take you home, but it will be very disappointing.” 

It wasn’t that she felt “pressured” to stay. If she could, she would be around Draco all the time, especially if it meant he would completely trust her again and stop holding a grudge over one little lie. The more she thought about it, the more curious she became, but she seriously doubted she would sleep a wink while being there. Silently, Cilwenu agreed. 

* * *

Lunch had been fine, when it was the two of them alone. 

Dinner was a different story. Servants buzzed around like hyper bumblebees in order to get food prepared for the Malfoys and… guest. There was a first course, soup. There was a second course, a light garden salad. Then, it came to the main course. Cilwenu looked upon the table at the amount of food they were served and wondered if this was an everyday occurrence. She wasn’t sure that she would even be able to make it through the main course, being so stuffed from the first two. However, she didn’t want to be rude and wasteful.

It was just a bit excessive for an everyday meal. Draco ate every last bit and portion that was given to him. 

The casual conversation between the Malfoy family was strange, because as a child with no real connection to her father, she didn’t know what was normal and what was the alternative. Narcissa asked about Draco’s day, how he was feeling, and dipped into the inquiries about what he was planning to do for the remainder of the break before going back to school. From the sound of things, Draco didn’t have his friends over much, and Cilwenu was the first girlfriend he had brought to spend the night.

Cilwenu would be lying if she said that didn’t make her feel something.

* * *

Who knew that normal things that wouldn’t matter could actually make somebody extremely self aware and anxious. Cilwenu usually showered every night, but found herself conflicted when she thought about taking a shower at the Manor. It wasn’t like she thought Draco would sneak into the bathroom and try to do anything… risqué. It was just the fact that she would be naked and wet in a room where he was only a short distance from. 

It ended up being fine, and not because she rushed, but because she talked herself down from the anxiety. She was getting worked up over the dumbest thing. 

When she left the bathroom, her hair brushed in order to air dry, she felt the coldness of the house surround her. She shivered, wrapped her arms around herself to try and regain the warmth she lost. Somehow, Narcissa had clothes that fit Cilwenu just right, and she didn’t know if that should be questioned. She just went with the flow because she didn’t really want to ruin the mood by asking to be taken home. 

However, when Draco walked her to the guest room and kissed her goodnight, she felt lonely. Again, she reminded herself there would be no sleep, and she prepared herself to struggle with the lack of sleep in the morning. It would require a lot of coffee at breakfast to maintain. 

She sat on the edge of the bed, which faced a mirror mounted on the wall in front of her. Cilwenu stared at her reflection imagining some sort of moving image would show up behind her in the glass. She inhaled and practiced breathing exercises while she continued to stare at herself. The room was decorated in deep blues and emerald greens. The fabric beneath her was velour, and super plush against her fingertips, atop a firm bed where her toes barely brushed the dark wood floor. 

An ornate armoire was caddy-cornered near a window, where the curtains had been closed for the night. They looked pretty thick, and sturdy, probably blackout curtains to keep the sunlight out until somebody tied them open. There was also an antique chair next to a shelf of special edition books. Cilwenu only recognized them because they were similar to some of the First Edition books that her father kept in his study. Except, these were protected by a wood and glass door. Severus let his collect a lot of dust, but she knew she shouldn’t compare the Malfoys to her father. 

She had gotten so lost in her thoughts and observations, that she got startled when she heard the bedroom door open. Perhaps it had been a mistake, but she failed to speak up and say the room was occupied to whomever was about to walk in. Cilwenu felt a rush of relief wash over her when she laid eyes on Draco.

He had only just escorted her into that room not long ago. 

“I changed my mind.” She assumed maybe he changed his mind about her staying over and thought that he was about to aid her in packing up and leaving. “I want you to sleep next to me.”

She was wrong, clearly. 

“You… what-?”

“I want you to-“

“I heard what you said, Draco.” She interrupted him, and earned a mildly disheartened expression. 

The plan was to sleep in different rooms. In fact, Draco even said to her they wouldn’t be sleeping in the same room. She had never slept next to another person in her life, and she already wasn’t going to do so on her own. Her heart began to thud quickly as she imagined it. 

“You need reassurance.”

“I don’t know what I need.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I- I don’t know.” Flustered, so she felt like she needed to open the window and let in the chilly air, so that she would calm down and cool off. The whole thing was going to drive her mad, but she was strangely curious as well. What was that going to be like? He shuffled his feet at the door, before he walked up to Cilwenu and grabbed her hands. 

Draco brought her fingers to his mouth and ghosted his lips over her knuckles. The grin on him was cunning, because he was always dripping with his cunning charm. Cilwenu felt like she couldn’t breathe, because after he kissed her hands, he leaned in to kiss her forehead. He would kiss her nose, each of her cheeks, and then gently kiss her lips.

How could she deny a kiss from her boyfriend. Cilwenu instantly melted into his warmth, placing her hands on the side of his face. She kissed him back with such tenderness and adoration. Draco hummed, his arms bringing her in closer. 

Cilwenu got so lost in the moment that she had to remind herself where she was: on a bed, in her pajamas, kissing her boyfriend at bedtime. The realization took back over and she was snapped into reality, before she pushed her hands against his shoulders and looked up at him.

Draco cleared his throat. He really didn’t have intentions of the kiss progressing further than what it was, but supposed that it may give the impression it might, had it continued. He tucked a strand of Cilwenu’s hair behind one of her ears, and gave her one last kiss on the forehead. 

“I can go back to my room, if you would like. I wouldn’t do anything you are not comfortable with tonight.” She knew that Draco wouldn’t, because she knew that he was traditional, and wasn’t ready for anything more than kissing her. Maybe sleeping in the same bed was a form of deeper intimacy, but it wasn’t as nerve wracking as her emotions were making it out to be. 

“N-no… we can… sleep in the same bed, but won’t we get caught?” 

“Don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so.”

He pulled away from her completely in order to shut off the lights, and then coaxed her to go into the bed with him. He pulled down the covers, climbed in, and then patted the space right next to him for her to join. She had watched him the entire time, observing the way he walked, and the color of his skin against the charcoal grey pajama set he was wearing. So clean, so smooth. 

Cilwenu slid into the bed and then laid awkwardly beside Draco, not sure what to do with her arms or legs. He chuckled under his breath, and reached out to touch her face. 

“It’s okay. I’m not going to bite you.” He winked, and she turned red, happy the lights were off at that point. Draco’s hand slipped down to her arm, fingertips tugging at her to slide closer to him. 

“You’re not nervous?” She had been concerned that she might be trembling, but she ended up doing what Draco was suggesting her to. He wrapped his arms around her and aligned their bodies to feel her warmth. She knew he could probably sense her anxiousness, her breathing unable to be slowed down due to how rapidly her heart was beating. However, she felt his lips pressed against her forehead a couple times and knew that the tension would settle eventually. 

“Why would I be nervous?” He inquired, sounding as cool as ever when he spoke. 

“Is this the first time you have slept beside a girl?”

“Yes, but I am not nervous.”

“Elaborate…?”

Draco stopped kissing her forehead, then worked on just stroking the back of Cilwenu’s head, fingers traveling through the locks of her hair like silk. She smelled so fresh, and yet she would always give off that familiar vanilla scent. Draco could adapt easily to a scene like this, in bed with a girl he was very fond of, just innocently chattering until they both fell asleep every night. Draco imagined his friends might poke fun at him if he told them about it, but it didn’t matter… not in that moment where he was enveloped in the warmth of his girlfriend.

“How about you and I just try to get some sleep, and we can talk about it later.” 

Cilwenu watched Draco’s eyes as they fluttered closed, then lay there next to him with petulance all over her face. She would have to give up knowing until he said so, and yet she knew that whatever it was probably wasn’t anything to worry about. Instead of nagging and fighting her case, she had begun to feel herself grow sleepy, unlike she thought. Laying in his arms, with the warmth of his breath puffing out from his nose and against her neck once he moved his head, she felt herself relax. She also ran her fingers through his hair, slowly, while the feeling of sleep took hold of her. 

_ (*dream*)  _

_ “I don’t think you realize how much I care about you.” The voice sounded almost muffled, but the hand that touched her cheek was large, it was soft. Cilwenu leaned into the touch, grabbing the wrist of whosever hand it was. The image was blurred too, a weird visual that made her want to rub the fog out of her eyes.  _

_ It was no use. However, there was a part of her body that recognized this person somehow. Their kindness, their spirit. However, the thing that confused her was that it didn’t seem the same as Draco’s presence. Why was that? She assumed the person WAS Draco… he was her boyfriend, after all.  _

_ “You should think about your life with me.”  _

_ “My life… is with you.” She said to the muffled voice, becoming more confused when another hand touched the other cheek, and the blurry person came closer to her.  _

_ “It’s not with me.” _

_ “You’re confusing me.” _

_ “Maybe I should enlighten you.”  _

_ Cilwenu flinched when there was a set of lips on top of her. She had both hands on top of the hands upon her face, out of shock and curiosity. These lips were not familiar, but they were gentle, tender, warm. She had never kissed these lips before and then realized that her dream couldn’t possibly be about Draco. Then again, her subconscious was telling her not to panic, because it didn’t feel wrong to her.  _

_ This kiss felt like air, like the clouds and the warm sunshine. Her skin was glowing with excitement, her body singing with life.  _

_ When the kiss was over, the person drew back, and Cilwenu opened her eyes. She hadn’t even realized that she closed them and then felt disappointed when the warmth was gone. The kiss didn’t even seem like it lasted long enough, but as she opened her eyes, she noticed the visuals becoming clearer.  _

_ She kept blinking, only to be surprised at who she saw as clear as the day. _

_ Harry.  _

_ (*end dream*) _


	11. Concern & Confusion

The train looked ominous for a particular reason as she approached with her belongings, dragging the suitcase as if it weighed a ton. A lot of the faces she passed by in the halls back at school were already in their friend groups and talking about all the things they did while they had the week off. Cilwenu swallowed the lump in her throat, and looked nervously for Hermione, Ron and Harry…

Oh, Harry.

_ She woke up with a start and shot up in the bed as if something had sent a shockwave throughout her entire body. It was still dark in the room, and she was confused thinking it might have still been nighttime. Cilwenu forgot the thick, heavy curtains that were most likely the cause of the room being dark still.  _

_ Draco was still asleep, and he had his back turned to her, laid on his side with his arm underneath the pillow, while the other was across his chest. Somehow he had ended up shirtless. She was surprised she didn’t wake him up, but was more alarmed at the content of her dream. She was kissing Harry, and she didn’t feel like it was wrong, being aware that she was still with Draco in her dream while it happened.  _

_ Cilwenu was too afraid to go back to sleep thinking that she would have another one of those dreams about her best friend. It was often said that dreams are just things your subconscious craves. It was impossible to wrap her mind around the way she felt in the dream, and how she could ever look at Harry the same when she went back to school without thinking about it.  _

_ It wouldn’t be wise to tell Draco about it either, because it would ultimately wind up in the two of them being right back at Point A with Draco’s trust. She laid back down and tried closing her eyes, but they snapped back open and she stared at the contours of Draco’s back, and how the rest of his body disappeared beneath the sheets.  _

_ The next morning at breakfast, she drank lots of orange juice, to substitute for the lack of coffee, and scarfed down the crepes and fruit put on her plate. She told Draco that she did want to get an early start on her packing - and in the early afternoon, she was taken back to her house, where her father greeted her at the door. He looked a little displeased with the fact that she stayed over at Malfoy Manor, and truth be told… she wondered if it were a mistake herself. _

_ Draco mentioned Cilwenu sitting in the compartment with him and Blaise on the way back, and the next two days afterwards seemed to drag on slowly without his presence until then. Cilwenu wanted so badly to tell Hermione about her dream, about as badly as she wished that she could have actually enjoyed sleeping in the bed with her boyfriend for the first time.  _

_ A dream about Harry was never supposed to happen, and she feared that it may have mucked everything up.  _

She caught sight of Hermione’s hair before she caught sight of anything else. She was smiling and reaching around to hug everybody near her. Her cheeks were flushed with color, as if she spent most of the time in the sun. Harry stood next to her, a recipient of one of her embraces, and looked just as happy. Cilwenu supposed Ron was late as per usual, and had been ready to walk up to the others when she heard her name being called from behind. 

Draco arrived, and that only reminded Cilwenu she promised to spend more time with her boyfriend, including the ride back to the school they’d already discussed a couple days prior. Narcissa and Lucius were retreating through the crowd, having said their goodbyes until the next break or holiday. He grabbed Cilwenu’s hand when they met in the middle, and kissed her knuckles with that same grin. He instructed her to follow him towards the back of the train where they would be meeting up with Blaise… and apparently Pansy. Great. 

The last thing she needed was to be stuck in the same compartment as Pansy freaking Parkinson, but Draco told Cilwenu to “play nice”.

“You tell her to play nice, too, and then I will consider it.”

Once boarded, Draco helped Cilwenu put her suitcase on the overhead racks alongside his own. He commented about how hers was almost a third larger than his. She nudged him and told him to stop picking on her. Cilwenu had gotten absorbed in the cute banter between herself and Draco, that she didn’t even notice the other two entering the compartment. 

Pansy cringed, a disgusted look on her face, while Blaise looked amused at her displeasure. 

“I knew I should have brought a vomit bag with me.”

Cilwenu rolled her eyes, “There are plenty of other seats to sit in if you aren’t comfortable. This train is awfully accommodating, Pansy.”

“So, why don’t you go sit in one of them?” 

Blaise was chuckling, to which Draco admonished to Cilwenu that he asked her to be nice. She rolled her eyes a second time, then sat down near the window, arms crossed over her chest. Draco sat right beside her, then began talking to Blaise about upcoming scrimmages and how eager he was to get back on the field. 

It was boring listening to them talk, though. She had nothing nice to say to the girl across from her who was playing with some annoying sounding device that Cilwenu wished she could smack right out of her hands. As she peered out the window, she drifted off into thoughts about the week entirely. How she had gotten copious amounts of sleep up until the night she spent with Draco, and then the last nights without him before she left. 

_ “You should think about your life with me.” _

“Right, Cilwenu?”

She jerked when Draco patted her shoulder, which confused him. So deep in her thoughts, and she was embarrassed to have reacted that way. She didn’t really know what to say in response, considering she didn’t really know much about what they were discussing. Clearing her throat, she simply nodded, then could only think about walking through the train to find Harry and her friends. 

“Do you want anything from the trolley?” Cilwenu asked her boyfriend. 

Draco shook his head, and Cilwenu kissed his cheek, which was not something she usually did in front of his friends. Pansy pretended to retch, Blaise made clicking noises with his tongue and waggled his eyebrows at Draco. She didn’t want to know what Blaise probably assumed…

She slipped out of the way, and slid the door to the compartment closed behind her. Cilwenu was on a mission to find the three, and have a few moments with them, but she needed to be rather quick and also stop at the trolley to make what she said believable. It brought a little guilt into her belly when she thought about Draco, but it’s not like she told him that she was strictly going to visit the trolley and nothing else. 

Cilwenu thought maybe the universe was plotting with her when she looked ahead of her and saw Harry headed in her direction. She felt something stop her briefly, and suddenly she wasn’t sure she should be walking that way anymore… However, when she went to turn around, another student rushed past her and knocked her into the door to another compartment to her left. 

Harry was in front of her in a matter of moments after that, helping her stand straight, while asking if she was okay in the aftermath. 

Harry was still Harry, and why wouldn’t he be? Not much could drastically change in the span of a week, but it was the thought of her dream that heavily impacted her reaction. Cilwenu became flustered, and bright red as he touched her with those hands. 

She pulled back from him so suddenly, that Harry took a step backwards as well. He would brush it off as being flustered because she was knocked into a wall, rather than the actual truth.

“Hey, Wen.”

“Harry, you startled me.”

“I thought it might be the other thing…”

She felt her cheeks get darker, perhaps with all the blood rushing there to pinpoint just how embarrassed she was. 

“Are you with Hermione and Ron?”

He nodded, “I came out for a second, and can’t really remember why, but yes. Would you like to come and join-“

“Well, I’ve got all my stuff in Draco’s compartment.”

“Oh.”

She stood there and watched the disappointment on Harry’s face become obvious. He still tried to smile though, but she could tell that he wanted to hang out with her, being her best friend at all. It was what they were supposed to do, and Harry probably felt bad for not saying much to her before their break. They didn’t even sit in the same compartment then, because Ron was still furious with Cilwenu for something Draco’s friends did. She didn’t expect for Ron’s anger to completely be gone in a week, though. 

Oh, but she wanted to. She wanted to sit with Harry, Ron, and Hermione like old times. How badly she wished things could be like they were, even with Draco in the picture, but that wasn’t as crystal clear as she wanted it to be. It might not be… ever. But, with the dream still in the front of her mind, Cilwenu caught herself staring at Harry’s features for an awkward amount of time. Maybe it was all in her head, because he just seemed unfazed aside from the fact that he wanted to catch up and ask her how the break had gone for her. 

“I…”

“We can talk later, Wen.”

She nodded, and then hesitated a moment, wanting to hug Harry, but unsure if she should. He, however, wrapped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest briefly. Cilwenu couldn’t breath the entire time, and she was concerned for how drastically that dream changed her thoughts. How it affected her reactions and made her unsure about her body language around him. Dreams had such a profound toll on people, and she never thought it was true until that very second. 

When they walked away from one another, Cilwenu looked over her shoulder, but Harry didn’’t look back at all.

She had completely forgotten about the trolley until she slipped into the compartment with Draco, “No sweets?”

Cilwenu gasped, “Oh!” She cleared her throat, “There was nothing worth bringing back.”


	12. Awkward Ease

Everything was making her flinch lately. She didn’t know why, aside from being unable to comprehend her thoughts about Harry. It had been a couple days back, and the lack of sleep she was getting was, well, exhausting. She almost caught herself falling asleep in the middle of a class at one point, and was worried that it would only get worse. How could she cut off those thoughts that were the root cause of her emotions? 

She was even trying to avoid Harry at all costs, knowing this would only make the situation worse in terms of wanting to rekindle any sort of closeness with him and their friends. Cilwenu spent most of her time in the common rooms with Draco, or watched him on the field during one of his practices. You know, whatever could be done in a span of two days, really. 

Draco seemed happy, but he usually did when he got what he wanted. The only truly annoying thing was that Pansy stuck around a lot of the time, making her snide remarks especially when she decided to also invite Millicent. She really did put on a show when she had an audience. Theodore Nott was on the same team as Draco, and made himself obvious by the constant glances back to Cilwenu - and she sincerely hoped that he was actually looking at Pansy. Ever since the last encounter with him, it was as if Pansy and Theodore were kind of a low-key item. 

Nobody really paid much attention to it, and Cilwenu certainly hadn’t. Her mind was always preoccupied with every other little stressful thing that drove her up the walls instead.

“If he’s not careful, Draco might suspect something.” Pansy leaned sideways to whisper that to Cilwenu. 

She narrowed her eyes, “Theodore Nott is not my concern, there is nothing to suspect. Isn’t he your boyfriend?”

“Not that it is any of your business, but we are not labeling anything. There isn’t even a ‘we’ to mention. I just think it would be amusing to see Draco confront Theodore over someone as boorish as you.”

“Thanks for the idle prattle, Parkinson.” Cilwenu stood away from her, then waved Draco down the moment the team broke apart to take a breather after a few field sprints. 

He was sweating, grinning at her as she wiped his bangs away from his forehead. A couple of teammates whistled and howled at Draco’s expense. He told them to pipe down, though he was laughing, then pulled Cilwenu to the side.

“Parkinson is giving me a headache. Is it alright if I wait for you in the common room?”

He looked a little hesitant, as well as a little distracted considering his head was still in the frame of practice mode. However, Draco nodded his head, then grabbed Cilwenu by the arms and pressed a kiss to her forehead… something he didn’t normally do where other people could see them. 

* * *

Cilwenu briskly walked through the school, just trying to clear her head of all the insane thoughts. The exhaustion, the need to just lie down, but she couldn’t because it really wouldn't make that much of a difference if she wasn’t getting much sleep anyways. Maybe she needed to eat something, or at least alter her diet… something. She could only think about Draco and her dream about Harry. She thought about how she left him behind in the train and could hardly talk to him.

How she didn’t even try to talk to him the last two days and knew he probably thought that she was distancing herself from him permanently. She really missed Harry and the other two. She wanted so badly to just sit with them and talk about their break, about anything… everything. 

As if her thoughts manifested the very thing she wished for, she came to a halt when she saw Lavender Brown walking alongside the red headed Ron, their arms linked, and her laughter pouring out and reverberating against the walls around them. She felt a nervousness that Ron would lash out at her, or walk in the complete opposite direction, but when he looked at her, he headed straight in her direction. Cilwenu didn’t know what to expect, but whatever it was… she was thinking the worst in her head at that moment. 

_ “Malfoy’s a real piece of work, and so are his friends. Did he send you over for a full report on my face?” _

_ “Lavender is in bits, by the way. She ran to her room right after it happened and refused to come out. Had they touched her, it would have been a big mistake. You should feel really shitty about the way your boyfriend lets his friends treat people, but he was probably impressed, wasn’t he? He’s too much of a coward to do anything like that himself, and what does that have to say about you?” _

It was one of the last things Ron said to her before he told her that he never wanted to speak to her so long as she was dating Draco. If that were true, then why would he be approaching her then?

“Oy, Cilwenu.” He called out to her, his expression full of disinclination.

Cilwenu swallowed, “Ron.”

“...um…”

Lavender whispered to Ron, telling him to speak up, or just leave it if he didn’t really want to say anything to Cilwenu. This made Cilwenu wonder if he was put up to it, or if he really had actually wanted to say anything to her in the first place. She glanced between the two, and it was almost agony just standing there waiting for anything…

“Right, well…. I wanted to come and talk to you about what happened with Crabbe and Goyle.”

“Ron, i-“

He shook his head and held up both hands, “Let me… let… let me.” This was making him just as nervous as she was. Perhaps, maybe, he was starting to overcome his frustrations with her, but that would be too good to be true.

“Lavender told me that what they did to us was not your doing. I knew that already… but… but I was angry at you for it.” He cleared his throat, being urged on by Lavender to continue while he had already initiated, “However, I still do not agree with the choices in boyfriends you make, and am still declining to confide my trust in you so long as you are together.”

Cilwenu didn’t know if he wanted her to reply or not, but she stood there and felt the hint of a grin try and curl her lips. While it wasn’t exactly an apology, at least what was spoken wasn’t spoken angrily. If he was put up to say something, then that would be fine. Cilwenu wouldn’t really need to know that part, even if she already speculated. If he was declining to confide in or trust her, did that mean he would still try and talk to her again cordially? She had questions, but knew she probably shouldn’t inquire just yet. 

She could only curtly nod her head, smiling. 

“Right…. well.”

“Right.” Cilwenu said just above a breath, and looked behind the couple to see Hermione and Harry approaching them. 

Once again, seeing Harry brought up her anxiety, because she hadn’t seen him since the train. If she thought she was at a loss for words standing there and listening to Ron speak, then she underestimated how much more at a loss she could become. 

Hermione greeted everyone, then lightly hugged Cilwenu and sighed with relief. Perhaps they all knew that Ron was going to say what he had, because it seemed like nothing had ever been wrong for just a moment. Cilwenu was surprised, so she didn’t get that chance to hug Hermione back the moment she locked eyes with Harry.

Harry, who she had so much pain for when they weren’t on speaking terms. Harry, who was the basis of Draco’s insecurities and issues. 

“We can agree to disagree, but it does not mean that we have to act like there is a feud amongst us anymore. We discussed it a lot over the break, Cilwenu, and we hope that you can understand our reservations and concerns about… your relationship.” Hermione said after she pulled out of the embrace and stood next to Harry. 

Cilwenu wasn’t sure if she should feel relieved yet, but it would definitely hit her at a later time that she would be able to speak to all of them again without worrying about them lashing out. For a split second, she felt elated, but then was swiftly reminded that their time together would be limited as per Draco’s request of her to spend a lot more time with him after the courtyard incident. She couldn’t allow that to ruin this particular moment, though. 

“Did you bully Ron into talking to me, Harry?”

“I told you I would have a word with him, but I hardly think it was ‘bullying’ of any sort.”

Ron snorted, but he grinned. 

Cilwenu had a flashback to the dream, the part where she remembered the way it felt to have Harry’s hand on her cheeks while his lips were on hers. The warmth, and their softness, which made her eyes absently slip to where his hands were at his sides, and then back up to his mouth, which were moving due to the chatter. The sudden urge to bolt and run the other way was starting to cloud her, but she looked over at Hermione desperately. 

Hermione arched a brow, because she had been observing Cilwenu in peripherals the entire time, because her body language was off, and she seemed tense rather than comforted. 

The other girl grabbed her arm, and then announced to the boys that they would be back, and for Lavender to keep Ron in check… even though Harry knew that Hermione really didn’t care for Lavender much. 

Cilwenu felt her cheeks warm up in embarrassment as Hermione pulled her towards the lavatory. Once they were in, she faced her, arms down, and her hand sliding out of Cilwenu’s. 

“Something has happened, hasn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Harry assumed that you would be overjoyed once Ron talked to you.”

“I didn’t know that Ron was seeking me out to have a talk, I just left Draco’s practice because Parkinson was annoying me, and then ran into Ron and Lavender while I cleared my head.”

Hermione exhaled, “You look different, like something is bothering you.”

“Mione, I… don’t know what to tell you, I’m sorry.”

“Just be honest with me, and talk to me like you used to. We used to always chat, until-“

“I started dating the enemy. I haven’t known how to talk to anybody since then, but that doesn’t mean that anything is wrong.”

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Not really, but it’s just because my sleep schedule was ripped apart by napping and sleeping until noon during the break-“

“You’re sure nothing is wrong?”

Cilwenu felt bad because for what seemed like forever, she hadn’t had a chance to talk to Hermione about anything. She didn’t spend much time with them and it made her - how many times had she sat and wished that she could open up to her about things? Countless, so, why when it is actually presented to her - the opportunity to talk, couldn’t she bring herself to do so?

Would Hermione even want to hear about her break? The fact that she spent time with Draco at his home and even spent the night there? Probably not, but what if she told Hermione about the dream she had about Harry? How would Hermione react to that? It would most definitely floor her, Cilwenu thought to herself, but if she didn’t talk to her about it then it would continue to slowly eat away at her, because she had no clue what to do about it.

“Hermione, I had a dream Harry and I kissed.”


	13. Sidetracked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m trying to add more details as I go. That’s basically what has been happening.

_ “Would you date Harry?” Hermione asked Cilwenu practically out of nowhere. She was minding her own business, off in thoughts of nothing but the next meal, to be quite honest. She and Ron had been conversing about it not long before that.  _

_ Luckily Hermione didn’t think to ask this until Harry and Ron wandered off somewhere for a reason that slipped her mind. She went wide-eyed, and looked at Hermione like she was mental.  _

_ “Are you trying to play matchmaker?” _

_ “No, I was only curious, is all. You guys do spend a lot of time together-“ _

_ “Hermione, I already have Malfoy on my case about mine and Harry’s friendship. Now you’re thinking about it, too?” _

_ “He’s blatantly teasing you and mocking your friendship with that stupid song he made up, but haven’t you thought about it?” _

_ Not particularly. She adored Harry, but didn’t consider the possibility that anything more could happen between them. She had never even kissed a boy before, much less thought about getting into a relationship with one. It seemed complicated and she didn’t want to jeopardize their friendship like that.  _

_ “Harry’s not awful to look at.” _

_ “Hermione Granger, why don’t YOU ask him out, then?” _

_ “Oh, bugger.” _

* * *

_ “What could you possibly see in somebody like him?” Hermione had not long found out about Cilwenu being caught with Draco, snogging in the library instead of working on whatever project she claimed they had been doing together.  _

_ She felt like her back was against a wall, because in those three years of knowing Hermione, she hadn’t ever seen her get this frustrated at her expense. Cilwenu didn’t think she would be on the other side of her personality, but could she really blame Hermione? Draco Malfoy, like she stated, was the bullying leech they couldn’t ever seem to shake. It was like he depended on humiliating others in order to go forth with his day. She understood why Hermione would be flustered about it, but Cilwenu wanted to tell her that there was a side of him that she had never seen before.  _

_ Was it the charm that blinded her from the fact that he was still this vile… evil… little cockroach? Hermione’s words, not Cilwenu’s - but she knew how preposterous it was that she was now keen on the guy who used to always bully her for being best friends with Harry. The guy who made up that obnoxious Snape and Potter rhyme that his friends chanted in the halls when they passed her and Harry every morning. The guy who taunted Ron for hand-me-downs, and homemade trinkets given to him by his family, or just flat out disrespected Hermione for standing up for herself.  _

_ “What are you going to say to Harry?” _

_ “You are acting like this is the end of the world-“ _

_ “I had to hear it from complete strangers, not even from you. Perhaps I wouldn’t be as cross if you had told me yourself and been honest from the start, Cilwenu.” _

_ “You would still be cross with me regardless.” _

_ “You have to tell Harry and Ron before they hear about it like I did.”  
_

* * *

_ “Boys… Cilwenu has something she would like to talk to you about.” Hermione probably would have dragged Cilwenu by the ear over to them if it were appropriate, but luckily she didn’t. However, Cilwenu found it difficult to keep up with her pace on the way there.  _

_ Ron and Harry had been arm wrestling, just as most teenage boys probably did at some point for no reason aside from a little ego boost to whoever was the winner. They stopped in the middle of it, curiously eyeing the two girls, Ron commenting on how out of sorts Hermione looked when she was upset about something. Harry’s much more considerate response was to ask Hermione if everything was okay. _

_ What was so important that she looked as frustrated as she did, and why Cilwenu looked as nervous and concerned as she was.  _

_ “Well, go on.” _

_ “Hey, calm down… what’s happening?” _

_ Hermione turned her head to Cilwenu, who ducked hers and her shoulders rose as if in defense mode when she spoke. The words came out awkwardly, probably a bit incoherent because there was no easy way to tell them about what Hermione heard through those other girls.  _

_ “I told you guys that I was working with Malfoy on a research project for class… I meant it.” _

_ “Yeah, and?” Ron waved his hand, urging Cilwenu to stop beating around the bush and to just get to the point of all the frustration and nervousness. _

_ “Um… well, Malfoy and I kissed.” It didn’t do her good to see the shocked looks on Ron and Harry’s face when it came out. Ron looked between his friends, and Hermione’s jaw was clenched so hard that you could see how tense she was just by hearing it all over again… yet from the direct source.  _

_ “Tell them the rest.” Hermione demanded. _

_ “I… I am kind of… seeing him.” _

_ “As in boyfriend, girlfriend?” Ron inquired, pointing one finger at the other, still holding the same expression, but now beginning to mirror the frustration that Hermione was experiencing. He couldn’t help but look at Harry, who didn’t say a word at all.  _

_ “I suppose you aren’t going to talk to me anymore, are you?” Cilwenu asked, hoping for an immediate, reassuring response.  _

_ “How can we be friends with you now? Malfoy isn’t going to let you be seen with us. He’s going to change you-“ _

_ “No, he can’t change me. He won't, I promise.”  _

_ However, the look of disappointment and inner conflict in Harry’s face made Cilwenu feel guilt. She knew that she should have been honest with them, like Hermione so politely instructed her when she was jumping down her throat moments ago before they caught up with the boys.  _

_ “Harry… say something, please.” _

_ He inhaled, almost struggling to get in the extra air, and then abruptly turned away from them and walked away. Cilwenu wanted to call after him, chase him, or something… but she knew that it would only blow up in her face if she did that. She needed to respect Harry’s space and allow him to process the thought in solitude, if that was what he needed.  _

_ “He likes you, you know.” Ron’s tone lowered, he shook his head with a sigh, “You were too distracted to notice, weren’t you?” _

_ “Ron, I-“  _

_ Hermione loosened her jaw, having watched Harry retreat into the distance as well, then tried really hard to collect her thoughts before she said anything more, “Ron, that was supposed to stay between us, you promised.” _

_ “It doesn’t matter, now, does it?” _

“What do you mean?” Hermione asked, after Cilwenu told her about the dream. The reaction she expected didn’t happen, and she wasn’t really sure what type of reaction she exactly expected if she were being honest. 

“I thought what I said was pretty clear.”

“You are dreaming about kissing our best friend now?” Hermione scrunched some of her hair in her hands and did a little circle around Cilwenu because she didn’t really know what else to do. She started laughing, which Cilwenu found rather odd. 

“When did you have this dream?”

“I was staying the night at Malfoy manor-“

“Wait! You spent the night with Malfoy?” She shrieked, “Cilwenu Eileen Snape!”

“Hermione, I need you to calm down before somebody hears you… Can you please focus on the dream and not the setting?”

She nodded, stood still, and then eagerly awaited Cilwenu’s story to continue, “Like I said, I was staying at Malfoy Manor, and somehow managed to fall asleep next to Draco. I didn’t expect to see Harry in my dream, but I didn’t know it was him until we kissed and it wasn’t blurry anymore.”

“Harry did say you were acting odd on the train… is that why you have been avoiding him?”

“Essentially.” 

“What about Malfoy? Has he noticed if you’ve been acting any different?”

Cilwenu shrugged. She had done such a good job just sticking around him like he wanted her to, that since he was getting what he asked for, he most likely wouldn’t notice her having any strange behavior. In fact, she had completely lost track of time and remembered that she told Draco she would meet him in the common room. If anybody saw her with Hermione in the bathroom, they would think she was lying all over again. He had blown the last tiny white lie up so dramatically, that she could only imagine what would happen a second time.

In her defense, she didn’t plan to be approached by Ron and the others, just like she had already told Hermione. 

“No, and I have to see him later after his practice.”

“You shouldn’t avoid Harry because of a dream, Wen… He is already concerned about you, which is why he was on Ron’s case about being so mean to you since you had such a breakdown the last time. He spent the entire week drilling Ron about how it was foolish of him to be angry at you over Crabbe and Goyle’s stupid pranks.”

“You can’t tell them, Mione, please.”

“It’s none of my business to tell Harry about you fantasizing.”

“It’s not a fantasy!”

“Surely, you don’t think that it’s a one-time fluke and it doesn’t mean that you have some sort of deep seeded feelings for Harry?”

That was bizarre. She didn’t like to think about that because it complicated things so much more than they already were. 

  
  



	14. Common Room Distraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a relatively short chapter. I apologize.
> 
> A lot of personal issues have pulled me down and made me doubt a lot, including whether or not I should continue. Regardless of these thoughts, even if it doesn’t get much attention, I plan to keep writing this even if I’m not exactly happy with how it goes. If I want, I can always edit it extensively later. 
> 
> A mild warning: this isn’t really necessary in my opinion, but there is excitement in the chapter that could potentially make somebody uncomfortable if you don’t like PDA of any sort. I won’t be writing mature material in my fictions otherwise if there’s any curiosity. 
> 
> Enjoy, and thank you.

She loved kissing him, that was all there was to it. Once he had showered and settled down with her in the common room, Draco initiated the make-out session… much like he did when they first began their relationship. His hands were sliding up and down her arms, into her hair, which he had taken down from her usual ponytail because “the hair tie was annoying”. Cilwenu wasn’t sure what to do with her own hands… The kissing was a distraction from the adrenaline she had gotten after all the anxiety talking to Hermione about her dream had caused. 

She was able to beat him there before he was even off the field, which meant that she dodged a bullet having spent so much time with the gang when it wasn’t her original intention. She hated that she felt like she would have to hide this from him, because the foundation of trust was going to continue to crumble the more she kept from him… especially since (as previously mentioned many, many times) that was their issue in the first place. Redundant, obviously. 

Draco’s weight pushed against her as he eased Cilwenu to lie back against the arm of the couch. He made sounds that were driving her wild, causing her skin to tingle and her cheeks to blaze bright red. He still had so much energy from practice, but at least he didn't smell like it anymore, although she wasn’t sure that she would have minded either way. Suppose the shower only livened his energy more, and prompted him to exert that energy all over his girlfriend. Intense and passionate… she was thriving. 

How they had managed to get the common room all to themselves was most likely a result of it being on the verge of dinner time… not a lot of students would idle around with their stomachs rumbling. If somebody were to walk in at that moment, they would think something else might happen, but Cilwenu was reminded that the two of them weren’t exactly ready to completely cross that line any time soon. 

Didn’t mean they couldn’t make-out, however. 

“You’re going to kiss away my lips if you keep this up.” Cilwenu blushed, breathing heavily when they broke away shortly, “Sometimes I forget how much of a teenaged boy you are until we’re alone.”

Draco chuckled, “I can take my kissing elsewhere if you’d prefer-“

“No!” She brought his face back to hers and kissed him again, wrapping her arms around his neck while he made a slight noise of excitement and laughter mixed within. He positioned both their bodies to be laying on their sides, his legs entangled with hers, his left hand grabbing on to her hip. What if they had done this sort of thing when she stayed the night with him? Would they be able to resist succumbing to those thoughts that had to at least be bubbling somewhere in Draco’s mind. He might be a little modest, but he was still a boy capable of fantasizing.

Cilwenu was about to break off from the kiss to pepper Draco’s neck with little pecks when she seeped into thoughts about the fantasies Draco might have had… only to be interrupted by the sound of Hermione’s voice in her head commenting on her “fantasizing” about Harry. 

If he didn’t notice some sort of strange behavior before, Draco certainly would when Cilwenu pulled back so quickly and sat up so straight that it almost made Draco topple off the couch and into the floor. He stared at her like she was insane, and wondered what had suddenly caused her to react that way. Cilwenu was still a little out of breath from the kissing, but she sat awkwardly, knowing that she completely ruined the moment with the jolt of not being able to shut off her mind. 

Why did her thoughts have to cut back on from being distracted at all, much less when she was trying to have some intimate time with her boyfriend that she hadn’t really gotten… not the passionate, eager type, anyways.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No… no, I-“ She grabbed one of his hands, lacing their fingers together with one, and covering both of their hands with her other, “Sorry, I haven’t really felt like myself lately.”

“I was trying to ease your mind, until you almost put me on the floor.” Draco pouted; his bottom lip jutted out cutely. 

She blushed, kissed his cheek, then released their hands with a sigh, suppose she should try to explain herself a little without telling Draco about anything involving Harry. 

Looking at Draco, she felt the butterflies in her stomach begin to flutter around, because they usually always did no matter what. She recalled a time when they didn’t exist, but then again, what if they had always been there to some extent… just dormant? He was so unabashedly handsome, there was no denying that. His skin was perfect, hair always styled so neat, and even when he looked disheveled, it wasn’t a bad look. Perhaps she was biased. 

Secretly she hoped that Pansy Parkinson was jealous of their relationship. She hoped that anybody who looked at them were envious at how good they looked… then again, those brief thoughts could be the result of an impression from being around Draco’s ego for a long time. When she looked at him like this, it was easy to forget anything that was bothering her… just like when they were making out before she was dragged back down into reality. If she just spent all the time with him like he wanted her to anyways, it would be so easy to forget the things on her mind.

Yet, as she sat there and imagined being able to lose herself in her boyfriend, the thoughts still managed to linger back in, because she was still exhausted. She was still struggling with having told Hermione, and she was still struggling with the feelings it had stirred up inside of her. The possibility versus the imagination were just too conflicting. 

“Don’t use the puppy dog face, it won’t work on me.”

He intensified it, for good measure. 

Cilwenu brushed her hand along his cheek, then leaned in to give him another kiss, because she couldn’t help herself, and decided she didn’t actually want to try and explain herself like she planned before. She just wanted to deal with it later, and hopes she would get some sort of sleep later on that night. 

“I’m famished. Let’s go eat, so you don’t try to push me on the floor again.”

“You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

He smirked.

  
  
  



	15. Another Dream, Another Argument

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a long week. Apologies to anybody who reads this. I’m going to continue, but I’m just trying to wind down from a hectic week is all.

_(*dream*) She stood in front of a full length mirror, spreading her hands over the bodice of an ivory colored dress. It was beaded, laced, and beautifully designed. The material felt cooling against her skin but fit perfectly, as if she was meant to wear this dress… as if it had been waiting on the racks only for her. Guess that was what it meant to find the ‘perfect dress’... she thought._

_Her hair fell like waves against her shoulders, and down her back - she knew that she was wearing hair extensions, because her hair was definitely not that long. It looked like black satin and smelled like delicate rose petals and sweet vanilla. Her makeup was soft but paired with a strikingly bold red lip. She didn’t recognize herself at all, but it was definitely her. She was about to get married._

_While she stood there still staring, she heard the sound of the door clicking behind her. She watched the handle turn downwards, then felt the brisk air from the other room slide in along with the person who entered. It was Harry and he was dressed in his normal garb, looking quite odd without his round-shaped glasses._

_“Harry…” Something in her mind screamed that Harry wasn’t supposed to be there. As if he were crashing the party against all the odds, all the rules. She was confused, because if this was her wedding… shouldn’t one of her best friends be allowed to come?_

_“Don’t marry him.”_

_“What?”_

_“Don’t marry Draco… don’t become one of them.” He repeated, hanging his head, but looking at her in the corner of his eye as he waited for her to respond._

_This agonizing feeling of guilt and confusion swept over Cilwenu, making her want to retch and rip off the bodice of her wedding dress. It felt like it was squeezing her ribs without mercy, because seeing him there and hearing him tell her not to marry Draco was all too much. She came to the realization that this was a dream, but she still couldn’t stop the words from coming out of her mouth, as if she were trying to get a better understanding as to why her subconscious was doing this to her._

_“Harry, you’re not making this easy for me.”_

_“I told you how I felt about you, and it was like you couldn’t care about the way I feel at all.” He said to her, standing completely straight now. The whole room around them buzzing with tension, “All these years being your best friend, and you betrayed us for Malfoy… and now you’re going to marry him and become one of them. I will never be able to look at you again.”_

_It reminded her of the way Ron talked to her when they found out she was even just dating Draco. The thought rattled her to her core, even in her dream._

_“Harry, you can’t do this, you can’t say these things to me… it’s not fair-“_

_“Fair? I loved you first, how is this fair to me?”_

_Harry wasn’t normally a selfish type of person, so this was extremely out of character for him. She could see the frustration in his eyes, the pain in his face while he clenched his jaw and looked at her in this beautiful white gown. Her whole body hurt thinking about what she was doing to him even though she kept reminding herself that it was a dream, but what if Harry truly felt like this?_

_What if Harry loved her, and she just made him feel so awful about himself every time she chose to stay with Draco? She felt her eyes fill with tears, and she wanted to comfort him, knowing that he would never do anything to hurt her like she had hurt him._

_“Harry, you’re being mean…” She cried, grabbing both sides of her head, “I can’t be with you, Harry… Draco is going to be my husband, and you shouldn’t be here talking to me like this. Don’t tell me that you love me and that I hurt you. This isn’t who you are… you should be happy for me-“_

_She knew that she was being the selfish one, because she was only denying the fact that she had hurt her best friend, having not even considered he always had feelings for her from the start. She was too preoccupied to notice that he was developing feelings for her, and did not think about how it made him feel when she was forced to tell him and Ron about Draco via Hermione. It was deja vu, because she had heard this so many times before, somewhere._

_Facing the truth was hard… but it was just a dream, so she had to snap out of it._

_“I love you. Don’t marry him.” (*end dream*)_

Cilwenu carried her books tightly against her chest, like she normally did when she was anxious. She was headed to her father’s class, knowing he would notice her strange behavior, and the last thing she needed was to pass by Theodore Nott and Pansy on her way through the door. Theodore smirked at her, while Pansy made a noise of repulsion in her favor. 

She just tried to ignore them, shuffling down to the front of the classroom and taking her seat there. She was able to set her books down, but it didn’t relieve any of the stress tension that was still weighing heavily on her. If she kept having dreams about Harry confessing his love for her, she was going to go completely insane. The one the night before was just extremely confusing and out of left field. She was in no way shape or form thinking about marriage, but something in her subconscious was keeping her on the brink… spiraling downwards with this second dream. 

Did she ever think about spending the rest of her life with Draco? Not really. She thought about being with him but none of those thoughts ever thought that far ahead into the future. She was still unsure how she felt about sleeping in the same bed as him when she did. He was her first boyfriend, after all… her first kiss… but would he be her first husband? Such a stretch to think about being only sixteen years old. She really wanted her mind to take a breather and calm down. 

Why did things have to become so complicated? Her friendship, her relationship… her whole life, really. 

“Settle in, class.” Severus said over the chitter chatter of her other peers, who were giggling and filing in right before the sound of the alarm that signaled everybody out of the hallways. She crunched herself up in her seat, because she didn’t want anybody touching her even accidentally. If she could just opt out and take a day to walk around outside without a single interruption, she knew it would ease her mind a little. 

Theodore sat annoyingly close to her, which was completely unnecessary. She rolled her eyes thinking about what Pansy had commented to her on the field the last time she saw him. He was so intent on staring her down, while he was supposedly dating her sworn enemy. Even if that wasn’t going on, she wouldn’t want the attention anyways. She had no idea why he looked at her the way he did, or why he seemed interested in her attention… Cilwenu had never once shown Theodore a shred of anything in return. 

“Hello, little snake.” He had to have leaned forward in order to whisper that at the back of her head. 

She didn’t acknowledge him, but it didn’t mean she could hide the reaction on her face too well. Cilwenu shuddered, because whatever new nickname he had for her was tragically stupid and unwanted. 

“I saw you at practice the other day.”

“How could you not have? You were staring at me almost the entire time.” She retorted, making Theodore chuckle softly. He leaned away from her, and she could feel his feet kicking the bottom of her chair. “Stop that.”

“You left so suddenly, it was rather disappointing.”

“For one of the smartest boys in class, you sure lack in common sense, Nott.” 

He continued to kick the bottom of her chair softly, but enough to send her into frustration and send her thoughts of taking one of her textbooks and swinging it behind her to knock him wherever she could manage. She thought he would take the hint,, but apparently not, and there wasn’t any other time where she thought he assumed it was ok to talk to her at all. She was Draco’s girl, and he knew that just like everybody else. Shouldn’t that be enough?

“Don’t be mean, little snake.”

“Stop it!” Cilwenu said just above a whisper through her teeth, turning around to stare at him with her eyes narrowed. She caught the attention of everybody else around them, including Severus. 

He cleared his throat, snapped a ruler down on her desk, and instructed her to stop disrupting class before she caught herself in detention. She slowly turned away from Theodore, staring down at the block letter words on the cover of her books. Cilwenu was still contemplating thwacking him with one, because a detention might be worth it. 

* * *

“Do you want to join in on watching practice today?” Draco asked her, as he brushed some of her hair away from her face, before he planted a kiss on her forehead. He watched around them to make sure that nobody mocked him for doing so, like they usually would. 

Cilwenu wanted to say yes to keep Draco happy, but if it meant seeing Theodore Nott one more time that day for more than two hours, then she really would rather not do so. She sighed, grabbed Draco’s fingers, then looked at him with hesitation, “I would really rather stay inside for once, if that’s okay with you.”

He looked like he might oppose, his brows furrowed together in disappointment, “I feel like I shouldn’t have given you the option. You’re my good luck charm…”

“I’m sorry, Draco… I just don’t want to go outside and sit in the sun all afternoon. I need to talk to-“

“Harry?”

She swallowed, “Hermione.”

“You know that I don’t trust you being around them, Cilwenu. You’re coming with me to practice.”

“Why ask, if you’re just going to act like an immature child?”

“Because you lied to me!”

She jerked her hands away from him, and stepped back. She should have already expected him to react that way, but she wasn’t going to go out there and watch him run around the field when she had so much going on in her mind. He had no idea what it was like to sit next to Pansy and have her taunt him about things that were beyond annoying. He had no idea what it was like to have Theodore taunting him like he did with her in class… and he had no idea what it was like to be so conflicted by confusing dreams that were sending her into this constant battle of anxiety and uncertainty. 

Draco was so used to getting what he wanted. She was not going to have it at that moment, and she wasn’t budging, just like him, “Oh my god, will you let it go!”

She went to walk away from him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her backwards. His fingers tightened around her skin, and it reminded her of how it felt to feel the bodice of her dreamland wedding dress squeezing her. She looked down at his hand, then up into his eyes, hers wide and her lips ajar. 

“Cilwenu, my trust for you was on wafer thin ice, and it would be in your best interest not to crack through that ice. You said that you were going to spend more time with me.”

“And you know that I have been spending almost all of my free time with you, so why are we suddenly being cast into senseless teenage drama all over again? I can’t keep doing this walking on eggshells business for you, Draco.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not going today. Why does it seem like you are so bipolar when it comes to certain things? I have friends, I have a life, and I am not some bird in a cage all because of one little lie that we have already argued about… You have to trust me, and you have to let me see my friends.”

He let go of her arm, and she grabbed it, rubbing the area where he had held his grip. She felt shaky and nervous, because standing up for herself could have potentially upset him more than she intended. She was so tired, so frantic, and she just wanted a moment of peace, knowing that it wouldn’t be so simple. Perhaps the break had been the calm before the storm. Had her mother gone through anything similar to this when she was alive? Constantly worrying about making her lover happy while slowly eating away at her own happiness?

The shocking thought made her turn away from Draco and walk off.

  
  



	16. Waves

Cilwenu ran into Harry, because of course the universe would find a way to make her head spin even more than it already was. There was hardly another student around, which also seemed to be a coincidence whenever she found herself in predicaments like this. The last time she cried to Harry was the cause of Draco’s onslaught anyways. She looked up at Harry as he grabbed her arms and held her still. She must have stumbled over herself in order for him to look at her the way he was…

Of course, the fact that she was practically hyperventilating keeping her sobs silent could have done it, too. 

“Hold on…” He said, trying to get a better look at her face as she attempted to look away so he couldn’t see her eyes swollen red, “What happened?”

“N-nothing…”

“You’re trembling, and look on the verge of an anxiety attack… and you expect me to believe that nothing is wrong?”

“Harry...”

He wasn’t going to just let this go and she knew that. He pulled her off to the side and wiped her tears away with his thumbs. She just let out a sob while he did it, and looked up at him again, the sadness welling up even more as she thought about how she hurt him, and how her bizarre dreams were coming after her guilt to remind her. He was her best friend and everything had changed so much in a matter of seven months… How could that have been more substantial than three years of friendship and loyalty?

“Was it Snape?” 

She shook her head.

“So it was Malfoy…?”

Cilwenu tried to smile, and she shrugged in defeat as if the situation could be laughable, but she knew it wasn’t. Harry sighed and shook his head, disappointed in knowing that Draco was the cause of her spiraling emotions. It seemed so typical and expected, but that had everything to do with the impression that Harry had of Draco. 

He kept wiping away her tears as they fell, and he wanted to take her into his arms and stroke her hair while telling her it would be okay… He knew he probably shouldn’t, but it was Cilwenu. Never mind that he still harbored feelings for her that developed when they were both thirteen. The way she laughed, the way she would push him playfully when he made a joke she told him was ‘ridiculous’. He recalled so many times where they would hang out and he would let her talk to him about things she thought her mother would like. 

He revealed to her that he wished that he knew more about his parents other than the stories he heard about them from his godfather, and their childhood mutual friends. Harry related to Cilwenu at times because she could be just as lost as he felt. When she began to see Draco on the regular, he admitted, at least to himself, that he thought about the possibility of Cilwenu falling victim to Draco’s ‘charm’ and ‘cunning’... or whatever those other annoying girls paraded around singing his praises. Then, when Hermione practically dragged it out of Cilwenu that she and Draco were actually secretly dating… it felt like she had spat directly into his face. 

Perhaps that was selfish, but he was so angry at her for doing that. He was so resentful towards Draco for taking somebody as broken as Cilwenu and adding more complication to her life like he knew he always would. He couldn’t bring himself to talk to Cilwenu for weeks after the initial shock… it was too difficult to build himself back up after hoping that one day she would have looked at him and wanted him instead. Harry battled with the thought that his emotions were trivial because he was still so young, and there would be other opportunities with plenty of other girls that would date him. Maybe it hurt so much because he considered her one of his best friends and he had been completely blindsided by his feelings for her to begin with. 

It happened so slowly, so gradually, and then immediately all at once. The whirlwind gave him metaphorical whiplash. 

“Are you going to tell me what he did to you?”

* * *

Hermione and Ron sat on the other side of Harry and Cilwenu as she sat silently, leaning against Harry for support as she stared at her fingertips. 

Hermione’s eyes glanced back and forth between she and Harry, because she was the only one that knew about the dream… one of them anyways. 

“Wen, we are all here for you.”

Ron muttered something about ‘bloody Malfoy’ underneath his breath but it wasn’t a surprise that he would have made a comment at all really. While he had previously told her how he felt about everything, it didn’t mean that Hermione was about to let him skip out on supporting their friend when she needed them. 

“She hasn’t talked since after i ran into her. She won’t tell me what’s wrong, but I managed to find out that it is Malfoy who upset her.”

“Are you really surprised?”

“Ron…” Hermione sighed. 

Ron shrugged, “All I am saying is it’s not shocking that she’s crying and it’s his fault.”

Hermione raised a hand to the table in order to reach out for Cilwenu. Neither one of hers were visible, and she glanced up at movement. She humored her friend, and Cilwenu was partially comforted by the warmth of Hermione’s hand. Any explanation she gave was just going to make them talk badly about Draco. She wasn’t sure how well she could handle it, even if she was upset with him at the moment as well. 

“What did Malfoy say that has upset you this much?”

She sniffled, and wiped her nose with part of her sleeve to prevent any embarrassing dripping accident. Cilwenu exhaled, “It was stupid.”

“Of course it was, it’s Malfoy.” Chimed Ron. 

“I told him I didn’t want to join him for practice. I wanted to talk to Hermione.” She said, feeling it bubbling up through her throat and out rather quickly, “He assumed that I was going to say I was meeting up with H-“

When Cilwenu stopped in the middle of her sentence, the three looked between one another confused. Harry was the only one who put two and two together quicker, and he sighed, ducking his head. Of course that would be the main issue. 

“What? Who-?”

“Harry, you git… he thought she was going to just be meeting up with Harry, didn’t he, Wen?”

She nodded, because there was no point in keeping them from the truth when it was going to come out eventually. 

“Well, he is being absolutely ridiculous. Harry is almost always with me anyways, as is Ron.” 

“He is still upset about when he saw Harry and I in the courtyard prior to break. He keeps bringing up that I lost his trust, and that I lied to him… All I was doing was going to find Ron and apologize to him for Crabbe and Goyle and their stupid shenanigans… I was crying in Harry’s arms and Pansy told Draco. This is all he is angry over, but I spent almost all the break with him. I have spent so much time with Draco, trying to make him happy.”

Hermione squeezed Cilwenu’s fingers to reassure her, but there was no way to stop her from crying again once the words came out. Ron had kind of shrank in his spot, but said nothing. Cilwenu felt Harry’s arm wrap around her shoulders, because he felt like it was what he needed to do, despite reservations he had about it earlier when she cried to him the first time that day. 

“Have you ever thought about what makes you happy?” Hermione asked her.

Cilwenu’s wet lashes fluttered, “I know you guys see this side of me, and I don’t know how to convince you that I am happy with Draco…”

“How is that true?”

“Well…”

“You are crying, an absolute mess because of an argument you had. He seems to hate it when you are around your friends, because we have never been anything but a relief from boredom from him. You know that, Harry and Ron know that.”

“Draco… talks to me. He understands what happens with my father, and how lonely I feel… but… not everything has to be so perfect.”

Ron knit his brows together, as if he might comment, but Hermione beat him to it, “Do you hear yourself?”

“I don’t think you will ever understand me, Hermione… Are relationships supposed to be perfect?”

“Well, no…”

“You don’t see how he treats me when he’s not being the Typical Malfoy… and I get that, but you have to try and understand that I am with him, and no matter how selfish or stupid I look… I just wish there was compromise… on both parties. You guys and Draco.”

That was probably the impossible, especially when she sat there crying about him before she actually opened her mouth again. All four of them would have to somehow find a way to meet in a middle ground. They didn’t have to like one another, because Draco was certainly set in his ways, but then again nothing about her thoughts were making sense. She was constantly going back and forth between knowing the outcome and what she hoped the outcome would be.

Obviously, Draco was the reason she was crying because he didn't want her to be there around Harry, but they were all a packaged deal. He was most likely going to make a big deal about it the next time they were together, and Cilwenu wasn’t prepared if she was being perfectly honest with herself. 

“I don’t like feeling like I can’t have friends. If I choose one, I lose the other… and I don’t want to think about it… so please… can you guys try, for me?”

Hermione sighed, but she looked at the boys for a moment. Harry looked rather tense as he dropped his arm from Cilwenu’s shoulders, clearing his throat in uncertainty. He lightly shrugged at Hermione, who then looked at Ron and patted his leg for some sort of response, silent or vocal. Ron shook his head, because he would never budge on his opinions of the guy who bullied him for many, many years. 

“I’ll figure out what to say to Draco.”

* * *

“Hey.” 

When the boys walked off, Hermione pulled Cilwenu to the side and observed her carefully. Her eyes were still puffy, and Hermione knew that Draco would be able to tell she had been crying basically the whole time she was gone. He probably even already knew where Cilwenu had been, which was unsettling, but the way that Cilwenu walked away from him was probably a pretty big indicator. 

“Do you want me to walk with you back to the common room?”

“I think I will be okay, but thank you.”

“We are here for you. You know that, don’t you?”

Cilwenu wondered if she should tell Hermione about the second dream she had about Harry, but didn’t think it would be the best time. She was already really worn out from the events from earlier with Draco, and then the tidal wave of emotions as she talked to the three and calmed down from crying. She just wanted to crawl into her dorm room bed and sleep for hours. She contemplated playing sick from classes the next day, even though it would put a little dent in her marks if she did so. 

She smiled, and then nodded to reassure Hermione for the time being. She could just tell her about the other dream another time. 

“I know.”


	17. The Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anybody reading this, so sorry about the amount of time it took me to post another chapter. This one is a little long, so I hope you enjoy. Comments welcome. A lot happened last week and I apologize. Thank you!

When she thought about talking to Draco about their previous argument, she didn’t know where to start. It was an encore of their fight before the break, and it seemed so redundant and exhausting. She shouldn’t have to feel like this at such a young age, and the thought of being with him long enough for marriage was a little too much to comprehend. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep that night regardless, but definitely not until she found him, and they talked about this. 

Her heart pounded in her chest like a raging drum, the anticipation making her feel like she might tumble over the edge. The common room wasn’t empty, much to her dismay, when she laid her eyes on Crabbe, Goyle, and Blaise. That could only mean Pansy was probably somewhere close, if she wasn’t too busy being preoccupied by Theodore Nott. Cilwenu could only hope. There was no sign of Draco, though. 

She inhaled through her nose, tried not to make direct eye contact, and then cleared her throat in attempts to gain the attention from at least one of them. 

Crabbe and Goyle began to whisper amongst themselves when Goyle nudged his larger friend in the side with his elbow. Blaise eyed them curiously, before he realized that Cilwenu was standing a few feet away. He sighed, as if maybe he was going to be the messenger for Draco, Cilwenu assumed. 

“Zabini…”

“Snape.”

“Is Draco around?”

“We got in from practice moments ago, so he’s most likely showering.” 

Cilwenu had somehow forgotten the time frame of which he would have been back, which was dumb of her considering she knew how long those things took, and she didn’t really know how much time she spent with the other three before returning to the common room. She nodded, awkwardly looking around, unsure if she should just wait in her room until she knew that he would be done. Who knew if he was going to come out and socialize anyways, but he probably would. He was the type that soaked up the attention even when his ego was bruised. 

“Oh, well, if it isn’t the wench who upset Draco so much that he couldn’t even focus on practice today.” A voice from behind came, which signaled Pansy’s unfortunate arrival. 

Cilwenu rolled her eyes, because of course Pansy would make snarky remarks even when she had her own relationship to worry about then. She would always advocate for Draco, when he didn’t even ask for it. 

“Shove it, Parkinson.”

“Pardon me? Are you copping an attitude with me because of this?”

“You always have something to say, don’t you?” 

“If you weren’t so wretched, then maybe I would keep my mouth shut.”

“Oh, believe me, those aren’t the only loose lips you have.”

Pansy made a loud protesting noise at Cilwenu’s last comment, then aimed to stomp over to the other girl and put her into her place. Cilwenu prepared herself for defense, but by the time Pansy made it close, Draco interjected by shouting her name and making her shriek in surprise instead.

Cilwenu eyed Pansy smugly, but inside she was screaming in anxiousness at the sound of her boyfriend’s voice. He was in his lounge clothes, but still put together nonetheless. He walked down the small staircase into the main part of the common room, and didn’t even look in Cilwenu’s direction, which made her nervous. 

“Cilwenu, will you come with me?”

* * *

Once they were in the silence of Draco’s room, he asked his dorm mate to leave for a moment, which they did pretty easily. She had never been inside his dorm room before this, and she stood close to the door once it was closed. Draco moved towards his bed, where he stopped, ducked his head slightly, and grabbed onto one of the posts. 

She noted his damp towel draped over one of the chairs which was most likely the one to his desk, where he would do homework, or some sort of reading. His side of the room was similar to his room back at Malfoy Manor, which wasn’t a surprise. Most people decorated their rooms in the same style. Cilwenu also noticed a few framed photos of Draco with his family, and they looked like complete carbon copies of one another when she looked at them like that. No smiles, just empty stares into the camera, but she didn’t see any photos of her anywhere. 

Cilwenu at least had one photo of them together in her room, so, maybe Draco just wasn’t as sentimental as she was when it came to that. She swallowed, then wondered if she should be the one to start the conversation. 

However, she still hadn’t worked out what she was going to start with. She was trying to push back some of the emotions inside of her that were becoming a turbulent storm. If she wasn’t careful, it would all come pouring out. 

“I didn’t expect to see you at all for the rest of the day, if I am being honest.” Draco said to her, dropping his arm from the post as he sat on the edge of his bed knees apart, forearms propped on his thighs while he slouched, which he hardly made a habit of doing. 

Cilwenu thought about moving away from the door, except that she didn’t, because she felt really out of place in his room, knowing they could potentially get caught. An adult would only assume something completely different from what was actually taking place. Especially when Draco booted out the other student, who probably needed to do some schoolwork of their own. She was overthinking, that’s all. 

“I didn’t think I would see you either.” Which, she didn’t. Yes, she spent all the time with her friends brooding and crying about their fight, but when she initially left him behind, she didn’t want to see his face for a while during her storming off. 

Yet, standing there, looking at the way he was sitting and looking back at her, it made Cilwenu feel something… not quite guilt, but then again, on the same level. 

“We need to talk about this.”

“You know where I stand with this, Cilwenu. We have already talked about this more than once. Do you expect me to trust you if-“

“I have told you over and over, I am sorry for that one time, but you are asking me to be with you every waking moment, and I am not going to be without my friends.”

“My friends aren’t good enough to satiate your need to socialize?”

Clearly, Draco was still upset with her, because he was being selfish, but that wasn’t so out of character for him normally. He should be able to trust her, but she shouldn’t have to feel so restricted by a teenaged boy who was always used to getting his way. Given the stories she would listen to about his father, she didn’t think it was too much to ask for him to not want to act that way. Yet, she could see the similarities between them, and if he was told he was acting like his father, he might completely soak it up, or be offended. 

“They don’t treat me like friends because of you.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Their loyalty has always been with you, and I’m just the girl who came in and started dating you. You cannot sit there and play clueless as to why they are not my friends, when you used to taunt and tease me alongside them before we got together. I have tolerated them as much as I possibly can and you know that Pansy Parkinson absolutely loathes me. She acts like you are her stolen property.”

He sat there, just staring at her, shaking his head, acting the same… as if what she said was complete poppycock. 

“My friends don’t treat me like this, but they struggle with us being together because of the past, and the present. Your friends still taunt my friends, and you act completely unbothered. I should not have to feel like I need to sneak around and see them when they have been a part of my life since we started coming to this school.”

“You and I have known one another since primary school-“

“It took me eleven years to look at you and not want to rip your blonde hair out of your head, the truth is there, and you know it…. but, you opened up to me, and you changed in the library… You weren’t Draco Malfoy, the annoying boy who always got his way… You were Draco Malfoy, the boy who just needed somebody to confide in and then you became my boyfriend.”

“Harry likes you.”

Even though she already knew, when it came from Draco’s own mouth, it was like she was hearing it for the first time all over again. When she stood there, eyes wide, mouth parted… Draco laughed under his breath, then stood and approached half-way. 

“What did you-“

“God, it’s so painfully obvious.”

“You leave Harry out of this, Draco… this is about you and I.”

“Our whole issue involves him, Cilwenu.” He said, holding his hands up.

She wanted to press herself against the door and become one with it. Did he really make it that obvious to everybody else except for her, and how long did Draco sit around with that inside his head? She felt her stomach being tied into knots. 

“I’m not a bird. You can’t cage me up and only bring me out when it’s for your benefit.” She muttered. 

Draco sighed again. 

“I have defended you and stayed with you this whole time, and I know I mean something to you, because you wouldn’t act the way you do if I didn’t. I cannot stand here and believe that isn’t true, but you have to realize that we are only sixteen, and we are not entitled to one another the way you think that you are entitled to me.”

She felt her limbs trying to turn into jelly the way that she was letting it all come out to him, but she knew that this wasn’t going to be easy. If he wanted to be with her, then he had to let her be free to be with him and have her friends at the same time. She didn’t know how much longer she could sit in conflict and have these selfish thoughts that her friends and Draco needed to get along in order for her to be happy. 

No, what she needed was to put her foot down and say what she wanted rather than just asking for it, essentially. 

“Do you know what I did on my break before your parents party? I stood in my window and wondered why I was with you, because sometimes this is the way I feel, and I don’t like being so confused about what I want.”

“I have never lied to you, and I opened up to you because I wanted to trust you. If you have doubts about being with me, then why are you still with me at all?”

“It’s because when we are truly alone, and you kiss me… i can’t seem to see myself without you. I throw away all the frustrations and concerns, because you distract me from the truth…” She felt her lip trembling, not particularly because she was scared, but because when she spoke it out loud, it sounded as ridiculous as it would to somebody who wasn’t in the relationship itself. 

Draco didn’t move, but his fingers curled into his palm, and he held a straight face as he responded to her, “What is the truth?”

“Draco…”

“I want to know the truth.”

“I care about you so deeply… I have these strong feelings for you, that I have never had for anybody else, and I am scared of them.” So, perhaps she was actually scared, but if her fear was losing Draco because he couldn’t accept the fact that she wanted her own freedom… then she suddenly felt like she had no choice. “I almost completely lost my friends over you. I confide in you my secrets about how I feel about Severus, and what I wish my mother could see when I don’t even remember what her face looks like… you let me open up, but you also make me feel like I have to walk on pins and needles around you and everybody else. I think I might even begin to love you-“

“Love me… as you stand there and tell me you struggle to be with me?”

“You choose to hear what you want, but you don’t understand wh-“

“Oh, I see it transparently.” He interrupted, one more step closer to her, and she did end up against the door after all. “I know the way that Harry Potter looks at you when he is around you. It has been obvious since you were thirteen years old, and this was long before I caught you in his arms in the courtyard. I was so angry with you, and while you second guess yourself and claim that I don’t know how it feels, you fail to understand where I, too, am coming from.”

If he knew that she had dreams about Harry, he would be infuriated, she already knew that. There was no way that she was going to bring it up in the middle of their conversation, and probably never. In the back of her mind, she wondered what Draco’s dorm mate was thinking could be happening. They had been talking for much longer than she anticipated, if she was being honest… maybe she thought that he would dismiss the previous argument altogether and pretend like nothing was wrong. Maybe she thought he would actually apologize, but instead, he was going to tell her how everything made him feel.

“I suppose you didn’t realize that this whole time, since we were children, I wanted you… Not because you were some prize to be won, but because you didn’t want me back. You rejected me multiple times, and then you became friends with Harry Potter… which boiled my blood. He looked at you like you wee the only girl in the room, so I made that stupid little song about the two of you to try and drive you away from him.”

“You thought your song would drive me away from my best friend? It only made me more upset with you-“

“We are all stupid in our own ways that makes me no different when I am blinded with jealousy.”

“You say I am not a prize to be won, but then you say that you only wanted me because I rejected you?” She swallowed, “How is that any different than me saying I could possibly love you but am struggling being with you?”

“You don’t want to hear that shit, Cilwenu.”

“Yes I do!”

“No, you don’t.”

“I want you to tell me that you didn’t want me until I didn’t want you.”

Draco pressed his lips into a thin line. He stared, and stared, and stared… like he had been this entire time. Cilwenu’s thudding heart continued to do so, and she was ready to open the door and bolt out because running away seemed a lot easier than what she knew was about to happen… What it was leading up to… the climax of the story of their relationship.

“Draco, I can’t do this anymore.” She then said to him, doing what she thought about doing and ultimately leaving him behind in his room before he could say anything else. She didn’t think he was going to anyways.

Just as abruptly as it started, it seemed to abruptly end. She walked out into the common room as if she were gliding down the stairs and past everybody else. She didn’t acknowledge a single person, and they didn’t speak to her, but she must have had it written all over her face.

How typical was it that it began to rain the moment she stepped outside. Thunder rumbling in the distance, and the wind lightly blowing around her and the trees. She inhaled the air, looked up at the sky, and tried to center the still turbulent emotions swirling around inside of her. She could cry, or she could yell, but the sensation she got walking away from Draco once she had broken up with him felt like no other feeling she had ever felt. Should she be sad, or should she run back and ask him to forgive her, and ask him to go back to the way it was before the end came upon them.

The truth, and she knew that he was aware, was that she couldn’t be without Harry, Ron, or Hermione, and there was no way that her friendship with them would survive if she continued to allow Draco to get his way all the time. That’s probably what he wanted to happen, seeing as how he admitted to being jealous of Harry more than once, and he knew that Harry had some sort of feelings for Cilwenu this whole time. 

Did he mean it when he said he wanted her more when she rejected him? Did he only want her at all because he didn’t want anybody else…. Harry… to have her? It didn’t matter anymore, because she told him she couldn’t do it anymore, whatever ‘it’ truly was. 

Raindrops fell against her cheeks, replacing tears that should have been falling from her eyes from what she had done, but they stayed inside of her. Maybe it would hit later, because there was adrenaline coursing through her veins and into her fingertips that kept her on her feet, kept her breathing without panic. She ignored it for now, and stood there while more rain fell and fell. 


	18. Afterthoughts

(Draco)

“ _I can’t do this anymore_.” She said to him, before she left the bedroom and disappeared.

He stood there for a moment and debated on going after her, but knew that it wouldn’t do much good. He could go and try to change her mind, but the anger inside him was coming to the surface afterwards and he thought ‘good riddance’ silently to himself. There was no way that he was ever going to settle for her being friends with somebody who was a potential threat to him, and the fact that he couldn’t man up and admit that without conflict was always going to be their issue. 

All of this arguing for something so trivial as jealousy. Maybe she would be over it in the morning, or a few days, and she would come back to him and apologize. That was incredibly selfish of him, he realized, but that was what he was hoping. Just for her to come back. He stood a little longer in front of the doorway and was about to close it, when Blaise appeared, confusion etched on his face. There was no way that his friends hadn’t seen her bolting out of his room and out of the common room. 

“Cilwenu left.”

“I’m well aware of that. Anything else?”

“So, are you-“

“It’s over. Probably for the best.” Draco interrupted, because if he showed anybody any sign of grief then that would ruin their image of him, wouldn't it? Or was that just how he was taught to be… by his father. Ohh… his mother was going to be disappointed when she heard the news. 

“Where could she be going at this time of evening?”

“It isn’t my problem anymore.” Draco said, as he sat himself back down on the edge of his bed and ran a hand through his partially damp hair. It would surely be all around the school within hours now that Pansy most likely put two and two together. He dreaded the oncoming days suddenly.

* * *

(Cilwenu)

When she went back inside, she made her way towards the only person she could think to talk to afterwards. Considering Ron was one of Harry’s roommates, there was no way that she was going to walk to his room, dripping wet and with makeup running down her face to tell him what she had just done. Cilwenu was shivering, but still running off the adrenaline she got when she first walked away.

Hermione looked incredulously at her friend once she opened the door, then peered around Cilwenu to see if there was anybody else looking. 

“Cilwenu, you’re soaking wet!”

Cilwenu lifted her arms a little, letting out a breathy laugh as the obvious was stated. She shrugged, then nudged her way into Hermione’s room. Hermione lightly closed the door, then rushed to grab a free blanket in order to wrap it around her friend. 

“Sorry if i am interrupting anything.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What were you doing outside in that storm anyways?”

“I broke up with Draco.”

The silence was surprising, because Cilwenu expected Hermione to make some sort of exclamation. Instead Hermione stared at her as if Cilwenu was about to break down into a fit of sobs, especially after the way that Cilwenu always seemed to defend her boyfriend… ex… boyfriend. Hermione’s throat clearing signaled she was trying to find the right words to say that weren’t, ‘oh, thank heavens’.

“Are.. are you alright?”

For the time being, when she probably wouldn’t have been had Draco been the one to initiate the breakup process, she did feel okay. Like the adrenaline was keeping her from spiraling downwards like she had been previously. It was quite unnerving how unbothered she currently was with the situation. All of the defense mechanisms, all of the times she spent justifying her relationship to herself, and all the happiness she felt being with Draco, and the way he made her feel in general. Cilwenu, for all intents and purposes, knew she should be a sobbing mess, but the fact that she wasn’t was so alarming that it was contributing to the fact that she was ok for that moment. 

“Pansy is probably throwing a bash right about now.”

“Was she there?”

“Draco called me into his room in front of them, and then when i ran out of the common room, they all had to have seen me.”

“Wh-what did he say to you?”

She thought about the essentials… feeling like she was the alternative to Draco’s boredom, and yet she knew that he had to feel something for her while he entertained her company. He refused to tell her that he didn’t just want her because he didn’t want Harry to have her, or because she continued to reject him their whole childhood. Never mind that she told him she had begun to fall in love with him, through all the struggling and conflict. 

“Maybe this whole time i have been in denial.”

“In denial with what, particularly?” 

Cilwenu shrugged again, “Well, everything.”

“Do you want to cry…. are you sure you are alright?” Hermione shuffled around in search of a tissue box, a handkerchief, or something of the like. Cilwenu gestured that it wasn’t necessary, because if she was going to cry, then maybe it would come later. Maybe it would already be happening. She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t want to give into it yet.

“He was so jealous of Harry.” Cilwenu breathed, “He kept bringing him up, and for some reason I momentarily wanted to tell him about my dreams. Of course, I didn’t, but… those dreams happened the night that I stayed in Malfoy Manor, and it had felt so right… I shielded myself from it because I thought it was wrong, and that I was being a bad girlfriend if I didn’t give Draco what he wanted. All I think was happening, was that I was doing anything to keep him from being angry and suspicious. Isn’t that awful…?”

Hermione and Cilwenu both sat down, and perhaps Hermione was still searching for the right things to say.

“I told Draco I was starting to fall in love with him.”

“You what?”

“He told me he only wanted me because I rejected him.” 

“Wen, are you sure you are okay?”

Cilwenu nodded, but if she continued to sit there and think about it for much longer, then it would actually begin to break her down. Adrenaline didn’t last forever, but she would suppress the need to break down for as long as possible, so long as she wasn’t alone. She wanted to ask Hermione if she could stay in her room for the night, if it wasn’t absolutely inappropriate. 

“I meant what I said to him, Hermione, regardless of what you all think of Draco. Hear me out… will you?”

“Of course…”

“The person that I gave in to in the library was a stark contrast to the Malfoy you and I both endured throughout the years. Every time I was with him, it felt new and fresh and exciting. I was also terrified of losing the three of you, and perhaps maybe I had, considering the path it took to repair everything. You all had reservations about Draco, and there is that logical part of me that absolutely agreed… but I pushed it down and wanted a world where the four of you all became cordial.”

She sighed, “I listened to the way Draco spoke to me tonight and then I just told him that i couldn’t do it anymore. I am a very impulsive person when under pressure, I suppose.”

Hermione grabbed Cilwenu’s hands, like she usually did in times of comfort, “As I said before, we are here for you. I am here for you. I am so sorry that you broke up with him, as weird as it may sound.”

Cilwenu couldn’t help but wonder what Draco was doing in the aftermath, and if he was having similar conversations with his friends as well. She wondered how he would sleep that night, and then thought about how he most likely wouldn’t let anybody know anything was bothering him at all. She could possibly just be another notch in his belt of girls to date, and maybe he would move onto the next one. Perhaps Pansy would break up with Theodore and shoot her shot again, like she so often did even with a boyfriend under her wing. 

At least Crabbe and Goyle would no longer be following her around when she wasn’t around Draco. Perhaps Pansy would actually begin to leave her alone, but that was a pretty far fetched idea, because their disliking one another stretched beyond Cilwenu ever taking Draco as her boyfriend. All of these thoughts that she felt coming in waves inside her mind were surely going to cloud her once she settled down. She was not prepared for more conflict. 

Should she have broken up with the only boy she had ever dated? 

Should she consider taking him back and seeing if they had one last chance at the things she had been hoping for? Civil union of romance and her friendships. She was only sixteen.. she had to keep that in mind and stop pulling herself around. Now, if only she could resolve issues with Severus and make her entire universe that much more peaceful. 

Most of all, Cilwenu would be telling Harry what she had done the next morning, and she wondered what his reaction would be like. 


End file.
